Trump or Clinton? Hell No!!

Americans are angry.

But not angry enough.

They should be in the streets shutting down corporate profits.

I have visions of semi-trucks parked across interstates and major cities occupied.

I have visions of the American government trying to figure out how to stop a determined populace that responds to injustice by standing united.

I have visions of corrupt politicians and bankers fleeing America, fearing prison.

I see, in my mind’s eye, a million people marching in unison, demanding justice.

But these visions are ripening on the vine.

We aren’t there yet.

Multinational corporations rig a “Democratic” election to appoint Hillary Clinton, who is nothing more than a figurehead for corporate profits and never-ending war…

People gather around the water cooler to complain.

Racist, white police-officers, sworn to protect and serve, MURDER unarmed black men..

Maybe we take a knee at a sporting event.

Our government poisons the water supply and the food.

Innocent children die.

But hey, football is on.

Americans have been domesticated.

We are afraid.

We are spoiled.

We are pacified.

Injustice has become entertainment.

We are too busy.

We are distracted.

As bad as all this is, when Donald Trump is President, things are going to get worse.

This is Germany 1933.

The police unions have endorsed Donald Trump.

We’ve seen what Trump thinks of protesters.

He encourages violence against them.

He touts the Second Amendment while oppressing the First.

In Trump’s America, protesters will be murdered and he will say..

“They’re disgusting. We’re trying to fix this country and these people hate it. They hate America. They got what was coming to them.”

His followers will cheer for blood in the streets.

Decades of America’s corporate greed and subsequent destruction of opportunity have led to a deep-seated desperation in our blue-collar workforce and Donald Trump has tapped into that.

Trump’s white supremacist supporters are stockpiling weapons, waiting for Martial Law, so they will have permission to kill blacks, gays, Hispanics and liberals.

They call themselves patriots.

Trump gives their movement license.

Trump fuels their fear.

Trump fills them with bravado.

“Make America Great Again” is the same code as “All Lives Matter”.

It is rhetoric that translates to “ban and bomb all Muslims.”

It is hyperbole that says “black people need to know their place.”

It is oration designed to stir the rage of people who were led to believe that it is their birthright to have superiority over others.

When Trump vomits forth hate-speech about deportation forces and punishing women who have abortions, he taps into an angry segment of our population and encourages it to creep out of the darkness.

When Trump makes fun of the handicapped, children on playgrounds follow suit.

When Trump points his tiny finger of blame, people are assaulted.

Trump is sounding the alarm to gather the forces and to round-up all those responsible for your pain and suffering.

He is the ruling-elite telling you to kill your neighbor, because they stole your crumbs.

He is fascism, come to America, wrapped in the flag.

He is paranoia personified.

Bernie Sanders was right when he said that we must do “everything in our power to stop Donald Trump.”

But you can’t ask us to vote for Hillary Clinton, Bernie.

That’s asking too much.

This was the “Democrats” election to lose.

They had two strong candidates and the GOP could not produce a decent opponent.

A year ago most liberals would have agreed that Bernie was the better candidate, but that Hillary was still better than Donald Trump.

But Hillary lied to us.

She took us for granted and she mocked us.

She insulted us and she stripped away our voting rights.

And she cheated.

She cheated in an American election against a good man.

She cheated the American people out of $238,000,000 (the amount that we donated to Bernie Sanders).

She cheated us out of our literal blood, sweat and tears, that we shed while working tirelessly, in an “election” that we never had a chance of winning.

We sacrificed far too much to just forgive and forget.

I remember telling my kids that we couldn’t afford to do certain things, because “Bernie needs our help.”

My children volunteered with me.

We went broke, driving anywhere we could to help canvas.

Speeding tickets, gas, damage to vehicle, oil changes and lost wages.

We spent the last several months trying to recover from these excursions and millions of Americans made the same sacrifices.

The “Democratic” Party’s mistreatment of Bernie Sanders and his supporters painted us into a corner.

I am terrified by the looming specter of a Trump presidency, but still I cannot bring myself to support the embodiment of everything I have spent my life fighting against.

If you were just a casual Sanders supporter (was there any such thing?) then perhaps you could just pull your Sanders sign up and replace it with a Clinton sign.

But for those of us who gave our entire lives to this movement, it is not even a serious consideration.

Sorry Bernie, I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton.

She simply does not deserve my vote.

Hillary and the DNC burned the bridges.

It is unreasonable to expect us to rebuild them.

Maybe if the “Democrats” lose an election that they could have easily won, then they will learn to listen to the people next time.

But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Perhaps the protests I am looking for will not be held in the streets.

Perhaps the next great protest in the United States will be held in the voting booth, where millions of liberals, that Hillary Clinton took for granted, will stand up in the face of tyranny and choose to vote their conscience instead of caving into the fear that the “Democratic” Party is banking on.

Maybe there is finally enough anger on the left to motivate them to get off their asses and actually build a true third-party for the people.

Maybe liberals will finally start paying attention to down-ballot races and midterm elections and rejecting corporate candidates in favor of true Progressives.

Maybe people will finally learn that voting with their dollars is where the real power lies and they will abstain from buying from the corporations that destroyed our democracy.

When confronted with the “choice” between being shot in the face or poisoned to death, the intelligent choice is to choose neither.

When confronted with the “choice” between someone who threatens to use nuclear weapons or someone who claims to be so ignorant that they did not know that “C” stood for classified, the rational person chooses neither.

When confronted with the “choice” between someone who will appoint alt-right Supreme Court judges or someone who secretly supports TPP, a trade agreement that will put corporate tribunals in charge of our government, the compassionate person says “HELL NO!!!”

Enough lesser-evilism!!

Hillary Clinton is pulling a Band-Aid off slowly, whereas Donald Trump is ripping it off fast.

Either way, it’s going to hurt.

Vote for Jill Stein or write in Bernie Sanders.

In an insane election, these are the only sane choices.

Some will say that this is throwing your vote away.

Nonsense.

Throwing your vote away is when you vote for someone whom you don’t believe in.

Throwing your vote away is voting for Donald Trump, a hate-monger who’s been spending daddy’s money and filing bankruptcy and charging it to the American tax-payer, while telling the people who are footing his bill that their poverty is the fault of other poor people.

Throwing your vote away is voting for Hillary Clinton, a warmonger who rode her rapist husband’s coattails into politics by representing a state that she wasn’t even a resident of, while supporting fracking and taking millions from the fossil-fuel industry.

With either one of these fools, you are doing more than throwing your vote away.

You are throwing your planet away.

You are throwing your dignity away.

You are throwing innocent lives away.

Neither have any business stepping foot in the White House and I do not and will not recognize their authority.

If you are insulted by your corporate “choice” for President, I suggest you exercise your Constitutional right to open rebellion.

Join with me in pledging to fight whichever one of these criminals is unfortunate enough to take office.

Let’s commit to being real activists.

Let’s commit to taking back our government.

Let’s lose the battle and win the war.

Hillary or Trump?

I choose neither.

If my voice is aligned with your voice, please consider donating $1 by clicking HERE. We are expanding our power by starting a YouTube show/Podcast that will be used to organize tremendous activism in line with the  Progressive philosophies of Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders. Any money donated goes directly to purchasing studio equipment to make that happen.

 

Come on Hillary!! Enough is Enough!!

With the latest insanity surrounding Hillary Clinton, involving her collapsing symbolically at a 9/11 memorial, I am reminded of how seriously fed up I have become with her sham of a campaign.

While corporate media focuses on an orange gnome with zero government experience, the rest of us are being force-fed a corporate, warmongering shill and we are supposed to be happy about it, just because she is “not Donald Trump”.

I honestly have tried to find something redeeming in the shit sandwich of her impending Presidency.

I have defended Hillary from time to time.

I agree with the assessment of her supporters, that she is better than Donald Trump, but without an ounce of facetiousness, I can say confidently that my dog, Butch, is a better candidate than Donald Trump.

Butch might relieve himself in the Oval Office, but at least he wouldn’t start a nuclear war.

I asked Butch about building a wall and forcing Mexico to pay for it and he just turned his head to one side, spun around in a circle three times and laid down.

As bad as Trump is, Hillary seems to be working overtime to prove she is nearly as pathetic.

Hiding medical problems from the American people, especially something as serious as neurological disorder, is just too much.

Is it unreasonable to ask that our candidates release their current medical records and have a psychiatric evaluation at least bi-annually?

Shouldn’t that be absolutely mandatory for anyone seeking to be in charge of the world’s most powerful military?

What difference does it make, right?

What fucking difference does it make?

I understand that Hillary is the choice of the establishment.

I know they have billions of dollars on the line.

I know they invested hundreds of millions to get her appointed into a position of power so that they could recoup their money 100 fold.

I know how this whole sham works, but seriously corporate America, do you have to make it so obvious?

For nearly a year she has hidden from the very people she is supposed to represent.

If only Hillary had chosen a decent running mate, then I would possibly feel confident, as it seems highly unlikely that she would even be able to complete her term.

But Tim Kaine?!

Uh, just no.

I am all for our country FINALLY having a female President, but at what cost?

Your campaign has become insulting to our intelligence.

 

Never mind that you have shown zero ability to be a decent leader.

Never mind that you can barely stand up unassisted.

Never mind that we are in desperate need of true leadership in our country’s most dire hour.

As much as we fear the idea of Donald Trump being President, you HAVE to let the people who vote for you keep their dignity.

When you repeatedly insult us, you make that impossible.

You honestly expect us to believe that you didn’t know “C” stood for classified?

You want us to buy into the lie that you are “looking into” releasing your Wall Street transcripts for 224 days now?

And I’m sick of hearing about Trump, every time I ask a legitimate question regarding one of Clinton’s glaring flaws.

If I ask about the Wall Street transcripts then I want to talk about YOUR WALL STREET TRANSCRIPTS!!!

Saying “Trump did not release his tax returns.” is not a suitable response.

My kids know that blaming their siblings for their wrongdoings is unacceptable.

Should I expect less from my President than I do from my children?

Given Trump as the alternative, I was willing to forgive a lot.

But Hillary, you simply ask too much.

For someone who so rarely speaks publicly, you certainly seem to put your foot in your mouth a lot.

Hillary, we do not “bring people to heel.”

We do not laugh at murder and say “We Came. We Saw. He died.”

We do not, under ANY circumstances, speak of political assassination as a way of winning a nomination.

We do not “land under Bosnian sniper-fire”, trivializing the heroes who actually have to face this real-life death from above.

Considering that the orange menace was my alternative, I was honestly willing to move on, if you were just willing to take some damned accountability and learn from your mistakes, but this campaign you took the dishonesty to a new level.

You can lie to the FBI and Congress and apparently they will give you a pass, but the American people WILL NOT!!

It would have been nice if you would have used this last 18 months to do something redeeming, so at the very least I could lie to myself and say that you had learned some valuable lessons and were trying now.

But you don’t try.

You take us for granted and we are beyond tired of your lies.

We are Charlie Brown and you are Lucy and we are done trying to kick the football.

We are done trusting you, only to land flat on our backs.

This has gone far enough.

You are clearly incapable of handling even the simplest task without mucking it up beyond all recognition.

You cannot appoint people to high-positions in our government in exchange for donations.

You cannot set up a charitable foundation and then donate the money to YOURSELF!!

You cannot arm terrorists and deport refugee children and then expect informed people to support you.

Hillary Clinton, you are simply not a decent human being and I cannot vote for you.

You have burned all the bridges.

 

All you had to do was just be open and honest and you would have had my reluctant support, simply because you are, as you often remind us, not quite as bad as Trump.

But you couldn’t do that.

You could not treat us with basic human dignity.

You could not give us that which all humans inherently deserve.

If I give voice to your thoughts and feelings, please consider donating $1 by clicking HERE. Why would you want to do that? I am currently working to build a podcast that gives voice to Progressive values and the studio equipment is expensive. When it is complete we will have a real, non-corporate voice in the media. I believe in this movement with my entire heart and I will make it happen regardless of rather you can afford to donate or not. I do not believe that lack of funds should silence you. I will always do my best to make sure everyone who has been silenced has a voice.

 

 

 

 

Polyamory with Bernie and Jill

Today I needed to go into a government building.

I was told to grab a number and take a seat.

I sat down and opened my tablet.

As I pissed away my precious time looking at memes I did not understand and kittens I could not pet, I was interrupted by a loud

“Hey!!”

I looked up to see a police officer towering over me.

He continued..

“You aren’t allowed to have that in here!!”

He was pointing at my tablet.

I contemplated my next maneuver.

Who was this pathetic little man in front of me?

Without that badge and gun, I bet he wouldn’t be so brave?

Understanding the rules of society and my lack of power in the situation, I contemplated my choices.

I really needed to get those forms.

I drove all the way down here.

And now this bully was throwing a monkey wrench in my day.

There were several hours of people in the queue ahead of me and I had neglected to bring a book.

If I had to put my tablet away, I would just have to stare into space the entire time.

There was only one intelligent choice.

“I’m sorry.” I said “I didn’t know.” and closed my tablet without a trace of attitude.

He walked away feeling like a big man.

Without anything to distract me, I was forced to watch the other people waiting.

I wondered about their lives.

A man, about my age, walked in and pulled a number.

He had a tattoo of a razor-blade across his Adam’s apple.

He sat down and pulled out his phone.

The officer had a chance to feel worthwhile again.

He walked briskly from the corner until his crotch was even with the razor-blade man’s face.

“You can’t have that in here!!”

The man looked up.

There was no processing options.

He knew exactly what to do.

“Oh, Super-Cop, eh?!!” he said, standing up.

Then he added

“I don’t need this shit!!” and then “Fuck you!!” halfheartedly under his breath as he walked away.

The cop stared daggers in the man’s back and fingered his taser.

The cop thought better of it.

The razor-blade man escaped unharmed.

Eventually my number was called.

I had my meeting and all went well.

Because I went to the meeting my son will be able to get the medicine he needs to stay alive.

I wondered about what I would say to my son, had I chosen to rebel against the power-mad cop.

I contemplated a world in which some men have dominance over others and how to navigate such an unfair existence.

I thought about Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the turmoil our country as been in, as a result of our Schizophrenic presidential election.

I thought about my friends who supported Bernie Sanders in such an extreme way, that adjusting to the reality of a Hillary Clinton presidency has them angry and depressed.

 

I wondered if the same energy required to force real change in our government would doom that energy to implode if the leadership went missing.

 

 

I remembered when my friend said “Bernie or Bust is basically the Tea Party of the Left.”

I remembered being annoyed and saying..

“If you mean that we are pulling the Democratic Party to the left the way The Tea Party pulled the Republicans to the right, then sure.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” he said “The Democratic Party has moved to the right as well. The Bernie Sanders campaign is about overpowering the movement of the Koch Brothers and the 1%. It’s directly opposite. Your movement is strong, because it is radical, but never lose sight that the ultimate goal is to move the party back to the left.”

He was right.

The Democratic Party is broken.

It’s neoliberal centrism no longer represents our values.

It’s so controlled by corporate interests, that it often neglects to represent the people.

So those who are justifiably angry at the Democratic Party have some choices to make and they have to make them fast.

November is looming.

435 House seats and 34 Senate seats are up for grabs.

The chance to usher in a new Progressive age in America is at hand.

And Bernie Sanders army of supporters are in complete control of our country’s destiny.

 

But the Bernie people are angry and they should be.

They were mistreated.

They were silenced.

The election deck was stacked against them and what makes matters worse is that they are 100% correct about the flaws of Hillary Clinton.

They are right to criticize her hawkish war record.

They are right to demand her Wall Street transcripts.

They are right not to trust her, when she has repeatedly lied to them.

 

Many are angry that Sanders did not join with Jill Stein and get revenge on the Democrats for short-changing him.

But developing a third-party is a lot more than just running a President.

If you are serious about developing the Green Party, phone-banking, donating and canvassing are not enough.

If you are serious about developing the Green Party, then you need to make sure that there are Green Party candidates running for the important offices in your area.

And if there are not, then you need to run yourself.

If by some incredible set of circumstances, Jill Stein were able to win the Presidency, what would she be able to accomplish without a sympathetic House and Senate?

Do you have Green Party candidates running for Congress in your district?

 

Most districts do not.

So what’s the strategy?

How do we continue our Progressive momentum without supporting a candidate who represents everything we stand against?

We must decide and fast.

Because allowing Republicans to control Congress will absolutely destroy everything we have worked for.

What are the maneuvers that will optimize the progress we have made to this point?

Time for Independents and Greens to make some tough choices.

We only have two months to decide the fate of the world.

So am I telling you that you should vote for Hillary Clinton?

You can do whatever you want.

It’s your vote.

I will be voting for Dr Jill Stein, even though I do not believe she has a legitimate shot to win.

I am voting for her, because I want to see more options on my ballot going forward.

I do not want another choice between a warmonger and a reality TV star.

I am voting for Jill Stein because Hillary Clinton and the DNC burned all their bridges with me.

I am voting for Jill Stein because she is the candidate who most closely represents my values.

I understand why Sanders endorsed Clinton.

He accepted the fact that the system was rigged against him, so he traded his 13 million votes towards a Progressive agenda, knowing that if we did our jobs in November, Clinton would be locked into supporting our positions or she would accomplish absolutely nothing during her one-term presidency.

Sure she is a liar, but she will not be a very effective one with a Congress full of Progressives.

As much as I hate that Clinton and the corrupt DNC’s cheating will be rewarded with the presidency, I will not compound this problem, by allowing her to run amok and do whatever she pleases.

Instead we need to insure that she works for us.

There are ways to force her to keep her word.

If you agree that Hillary is untrustworthy, then you must also agree that it is incumbent upon us to make sure we are pulling the strings that control her.

It is entirely possible to support Jill Stein and the Green Party, while promoting down-ballot candidates that further the values Sanders and his supporters worked so incredibly hard for.

If you want to vote for Jill, then you should.

Vote for Jill Stein to send a message to the DNC and Hillary Clinton that we do not approve of the way we have been treated.

Vote for Jill Stein because she has good policies.

 

Vote for Jill Stein because part of bringing the Democrats to the left is giving them competition from the left.

But how do Progressives vote in the down-ballot races where there aren’t any Green or Independent candidates to choose from?

Are we so angry with the DNC that we are going to refuse to vote entirely, thereby allowing the Republicans to keep control of Congress?

Because if we do that, we will lose everything we fought for and Bernie traded in his 13 million votes for nothing.

It seems to me that the most logical way to vote for these open seats is to vote in the way that binds Hillary Clinton to Progressive policies, while taking away her ability to repeat her hawkish patterns.

If we have Progressives in the House and Senate then we have complete control over her.

We can stop her from passing TPP.

We can stop her from declaring war.

We can even block her Supreme Court nominees if need be.

I am sorry that I cannot stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president.

We all did everything we could.

Many of us went to Philadelphia to protest this heinous corruption.

I was hoping that we could get enough people there to shut down the city and for one night we actually did, but in the end there simply weren’t enough of us.

If you want to start occupying major cities and demand a Hillary Clinton indictment, then I am right there with you.

But if you aren’t willing to do that, then you are going to have to control the other branches of government and that means voting Progressives into every office.

If your area doesn’t have any true Progressives running, then you will have to make a decision on whether to vote for the most Progressive candidate or to simply run yourself.

We cannot allow Hillary Clinton to start any more wars.

We cannot allow Hillary Clinton to give tax breaks to her wealthy friends.

We will support Progressive candidates, regardless of what party they are affiliated with, because that is the only way to keep a reign on her.

Not voting is not an option.

We’ve come too far..

And this election is simply too important to throw away.

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Hey Bernie Sanders, You Should Vote For Jill Stein

Hey Bernie, how the hell are you, brother?

I heard about you and Jane buying a new home on the beach and I couldn’t stop smiling, thinking about you out there chillin, grandkids running around, toes in the sand, drinking a Heady Topper or two, or three, or four, reflecting over the past year and a half.

Even though I dedicated my entire life to getting you elected, there was always this small part of me that wanted you to just go home and relax.

I worried about you.

You were working so hard that I feared that you would burn yourself out.

So the thought of you relaxing makes me extremely happy.

A few months ago, you asked me to vote for Hillary Clinton and because I hold you in such high esteem, I actually considered it.

I read the articles you wrote about it and I agree with you on many points.

It’s true, that if Donald Trump were to become president, America would be in for some hard times.

I read your book and I remember the sleepless nights you had agonizing over endorsing Bill Clinton, while the raccoon stirred in your attic.

I remember that you ultimately endorsed him, because you knew that Bob Dole would cut Social Security, but then you seemed to have some regret over it once NAFTA was enacted.

I know a lot of fair-weather people turned on you after the Hillary endorsement, but not me.

I totally get it.

You were in a really tough position and I admire you for doing what you felt was best.

But I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton.

The time for lesser-evilism is over.

Times are desperate.

“Enough is enough.” right?

“Millions of people standing together.” right?

“Political revolution.” right?

I have imaginary conversations with you all the time.

We are sitting on the beach, waves calmly crashing into the shore.

Killer Mike is on his way over with a blunt behind his ear.

Mike and I are going to walk on down the beach and build up an appetite, before we start grilling out.

We will invite you to walk with us, but you will stay back and get the fire started.

In our conversations, you tell me why it is important to vote for Hillary and I tell you why I struggle with this idea.

You talk to me about the importance of Supreme Court judges and I agree with you completely, but I have to counter with Hillary Clinton’s support for TPP.

You and I both know that Clinton is the Trojan horse for this horrible trade agreement.

You and I both know that she is lying about opposing it.

You and I both saw the secret emails where she urged Congress to pass it.

And we both know that TPP is so powerful that it would take away much of the Supreme Court’s power anyway.

You tell me that a Trump presidency would mean losing all the progress we have made over the last decade and I mostly agree with you, but then I remind you that the Democrats will always run on the lesser of two evils ideology and that we have to take a stand against it at some point and that we are running out of time.

 

I remind you that you have been saying for decades that we need a third-party in America and that there will never be a better time than now.

I remind you that you called the Democrats “ideologically bankrupt” and that you made a point to stay out of their party for nearly your entire career.

In our conversation, you are not actually arguing with me.

You are arguing against your own words.

I keep quoting you back to you.

You keep giving me a pained smile.

You’re getting tired of my Bernie knowledge.

You’d probably rather argue with Alan Greenspan for another eight and a half hours.

In our imaginary conversations, we both admit that the choice between Trump and Clinton is not a good one.

We both end up temporarily discouraged and exasperated.

We both end up saying that we have to take massive action to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

Then your grandkids all come running out in little Jill Stein T-Shirts.

I gave them to Jane, while you were in the restroom and asked her to send the kids out when I gave the signal.

Jane agrees with me on this one, Bernie.

And she promised the grandkids ice-cream if they would chant “Jill not Hill!!”

And Killer Mike just pulled up.

We have you outnumbered.

This is an intervention.

Back in reality, I agree with you wholeheartedly that a Trump presidency would be a disaster.

Having this maniac with the nuclear codes and the ability to nominate conservative judges scares the hell out of me.

But Jill is right, when she says..

“What we fear from Donald Trump, we have already seen from Hillary Clinton.”

Trump threatens to kill terrorist’s families and Hillary has already killed over a million innocent civilians in Honduras, Iraq and Libya.

Trump is a climate change denier.

Hillary Clinton takes millions from the fossil-fuel lobby and has no real climate plan.

Trump makes disgusting sexist comments.

Hillary silences her husband’s sexual assault victims.

We could compare and contrast all day, but all it would do is remind us that the choice between Trump and Clinton is no choice at all.

If this election has taught us anything, it’s that America is locked into a corporate duopoly, where the people are not being represented by their government and that this has to change.

Had we made our stand in 2012, the Green Party would have been a prominent party now.

You wouldn’t have had to run on the Democratic ticket and they would not have been allowed to abuse you the way that they did.

We cannot continue down this path any longer, my friend.

When you see what NAFTA did to cities like Flint and Detroit, do you still feel that endorsing Bill Clinton was right for America?

When you see how his crime bill decimated hundreds of thousands of black families, do you still feel that endorsing him ended up being the best move?

When you see how his repeal of Glass-Steagall lead to millions of Americans losing their homes and ultimately lead to a Wall Street bailout that the American people will be paying for, for the rest of their lives, do you still feel like lesser-evilism actually helped our country?

Would Bob Dole have been any worse?

Or would he have been equally bad for America, but just in different ways?

I know you see this, my brilliant friend.

The Republicans move to the right and the Democrats move in lockstep with them.

They always scream from the rooftops

“We aren’t as evil as the Republicans”

And Americans line up to buy the same lies every four years..

Because the alternative, on the surface at least, is so much worse.

As a result of this never-ending compromise, Americans are left feeling betrayed by the repeated broken promises of hope and this ultimately leads to a voter apathy so great, that the people barely have a voice at this point.

Is that really what you want to endorse?

The Bernie Sanders that I fell in love with was a man who stared into the face of evil and refused to blink.

The Bernie Sanders who inspired me was a man who said that people who suppress voting are “political cowards”.

The Bernie Sanders who got me off my ass and out knocking on doors was a man who stood opposite of Hillary Clinton and the multinational corporations she represents.

You said “Enough is enough”, Bernie..

And we listened.

Don’t ask us to vote out of fear, when you told us to stand together to fight against the 1%.

Don’t ask us to vote for everything you have rebelled against for the past fifty years.

Don’t ask us to get blood on our hands supporting Hillary’s next huge, genocidal business opportunity.

You’re too good for that.

There has never been a better time than now to tell the establishment to fuck right off.

Based on everything that you have said…

Based on everything you have stood for..

Based on the fact that Jill Stein embodies the same revolutionary spirit that you have spent your entire life representing..

The choice is clear.

Bernie Sanders, I really think you should vote for Jill Stein.

 

 

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Donald Trump is a Hillary Clinton Plant

Just before Donald Trump announced his candidacy for President of the United States, he had a conversation with Bill Clinton.

According to five different aids present for the conversation “Clinton encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party”.

While I am one to usually dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand, I recalled at the time wondering why Bill Clinton would be advising his friend Donald Trump to run for president as a Republican.

I also wondered why this was not getting more mainstream media coverage, but at the time, Trump was not considered to be a serious contender, so I laughed it off.

But a few weeks later Donald Trump did indeed announce his candidacy and much to the surprise of many, he was running as a Republican, despite an already overcrowded field.

Trump came out blazing, with a counterintuitive approach that marginalized millions of potential voters and left many scratching their heads.

As he continued to make comments slandering women, Hispanics, blacks and even the handicapped, millions speculated wildly on what his goals could possibly be.

After all, it is hard to win an election while alienating so much of the country’s population.

Still Trump’s poll numbers continued to rise.

I thought back to the conversation with Bill Clinton and while I was unwilling to speculate publicly, I did muse to a friend…

“Could he be mocking the GOP? He seems like a caricature of how the media depicts Republicans. He’s paranoid, misinformed, xenophobic and full of mean-spirited opinions. I don’t take his campaign seriously. I think he is trying to promote something.”

Then suddenly, Trump started talking about breaking off from the GOP and making a third party run.

Why would he break off when he was the front-runner?

If he did this, he would split the conservative vote and guarantee a win for the Democrats.

I thought again about Bill Clinton’s encouragement of Trump.

He sure is “playing a large role in the Republican Party” I thought “He is destroying any chance they have of winning the election.”

Still, I dismissed the theory, as I dismiss all such theories, as possible, but unlikely and difficult to prove.

When people mentioned it to me, I told them that I had thought of it, but that I didn’t think Trump was even trying to win the nomination.

I pointed to the fact that he not only did not have a ground game, but that he did not even know what the term meant.

“If he was trying to be a patsy for Hillary, wouldn’t he have to actually win the nomination?” I asked one friend.

My friend countered by saying that Trump did not need a ground game, because he was the official candidate of Fox News and that they would hand him the nomination on a silver platter by giving him around the clock coverage.

“Besides, if he actually ran a strong ground game, he may become too strong.” my friend reasoned “The goal is for him to win the nomination, then tank the whole campaign.”

I can honestly say that around this time I did start to take the claim a little more seriously, but I was still a long way off from being willing to take a hit to my credibility by speaking about this publicly.

I certainly didn’t want to get into a conversation with my friend about how Fox News co-owner, Rupert Murdoch, was a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton and had donated money to her campaign in 2016, but I had to admit that Fox’s embrace of Trump didn’t make much sense, considering that Trump was polling poorly against Clinton at the time.

If Murdoch wanted Clinton to win, then he could conceivably orchestrate this, by elevating Trump’s campaign during the primaries.

Trump is not a strong candidate versus Clinton.

In fact he ranked fourth against her in head to head polling for nearly the entire campaign.

If Murdoch actually wanted Clinton to lose, wouldn’t he have been more likely to promote Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or John Kasich?

All three candidates scored markedly better in head to head matchups against Clinton, especially Kasich, a moderate from the swing state of Ohio, who was defeating Hillary by more than 15 points in projected matchups.

But Murdoch, a friend and donor to Hillary Clinton, turned his network into a twenty-four hour a day info-mercial for Donald Trump, a candidate that he was openly critical of.

This is curious, but when you consider that Fox News co-owner, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, is one of Hillary Clinton’s largest donors, the Trump Plant Theory becomes even more intriguing.

Alwaleed bin Talal, dislikes Trump immensely and has even called for him to step down as a presidential candidate.

So why are these two billionaires, donating to Hillary Clinton while promoting Donald Trump?

This is a question worth answering.

This is the smoking gun.

Hillary Clinton, with her longtime friend and donor, Rupert Murdoch of Fox News at a 2006 fundraiser that Murdoch hosted for Clinton.

The point where I started to turn the corner from sane rationalist to election conspiracy theorist, was when one of my friends from New York commented on how strange Trump was acting.

“I know people who have rented from Trump.” she said “A few black people and one Hispanic lady and they have always described him as kind and amenable. I wonder what happened to him to turn him into such a bigot.”

Anecdotal evidence is all but worthless, but in this case it’s true, Trump has long been outspoken against racism. In fact, in 2000 he turned down an opportunity to run for president, because he did not want to be even loosely associated with Pat Buchanan, who had just received an endorsement from David Duke, whom Trump called “a bigot, a racist, a problem.”

And then there was the fact that Trump had been a donor to the Democratic Party for decades, until the sudden switch to attack Barack Obama regarding his place of birth, after a bitter primary between Obama and Clinton.

At the time, I wondered if Trump had initiated the birther movement because he was being protective of his friend Hillary, whose campaign he financially supported in 2008.

Some will say that Trump’s attacks on Obama are evidence of his racist views, but Trump has a history of being a Democrat who supports equality, so his recent Nazi-esque behavior certainly seems at odds with his past record.

In fact, Trump’s entire family are loyal Democrats.

In New York they were not even allowed to vote for him, because they had forgotten to change their voter registrations to Republican.

Then there is the matter of a woman’s right to choose.

Trump has long described himself as “very pro-choice”, so why the sudden insane talk of punishing women for having abortions?

Donald Trump is nearly 70 years old.

It is rare that people radically change ideologies so late in life.

When you include the fact that Trump went from being a proponent of universal healthcare, to suddenly being against it, we are left to wonder if perhaps The Donald had suffered a massive head injury late in 2015.

What else could explain the sudden change of his entire political philosophy seemingly overnight?

I thought back to the conversation with Bill Clinton.

“Oh my dog!!!” I thought “I’m a conspiracy theorist!!!”

But what would be Trump’s motivation?

What could the Clinton’s possibly use to lure him into making a complete jackass out of himself when he is worth $3.2 billion dollars?

I will answer that question with a better question;

Why does Donald Trump refuse to release his tax returns?

Could it be because, after bankrupting so many businesses, that Trump himself is bankrupt?

Could it be that his tax returns would show money coming from curious sources, leading to an investigation, that would ultimately prove that he is running a false flag campaign for his friends, the Clintons?

 

Could I be completely insane?

All of these options seem equally likely at this point.

I would suggest that people view my arguments with skepticism, but I would also suggest that you look for patterns in the media to see if there might be some validity to what I am saying.

 

While not necessarily causal, you will notice that every time something negative comes out about Hillary Clinton (Wikileaks anyone?), Trump jumps up front and center with some insane comment that pulls all the media attention to him.

For example, the day that a a federal judge granted a Freedom of Information Act request that exposed that Hillary Clinton was offering political favors in exchange for donations while she was Secratary of State, Donald Trump called for Clinton’s assassination and the entire corporate media focused on Trump’s comments and ignored this huge scandal that would have surely caused her to lose ground in the polls.

It is interesting that Trump’s comments rarely focus on issues.

Clinton is an easy target to attack on the issues, as she is literally caught in one form of scandal or another nearly every week, but Trump usually refrains from attacking her obvious treachery.

Instead he attacks her on her husband’s infidelity or makes comments about her failing health.

These comments have the desired effect of making Clinton into a sympathetic character, which causes people to rally around her and defend her.

If Trump were to speak on the issues, he would have the opportunity to educate the masses regarding her corruption and could potentially win the election, but by making personal, ugly attacks, he instead illicits sympathy for her and actually recruits voters on her behalf.

It is not as if accusing the “Democratic” Party of rigging an election is beyond the bounds of reason, considering that Wikileaks recently published thousands of emails, showing that they did exactly that to Bernie Sanders.

While I cannot prove that Donald Trump is working to insure a Hillary Clinton presidency, the preponderance of evidence is staggering and definitely should cause even the most anti-conspiritorial person to put this election under a microscope.

I’ll take my tin-foil hat off now.

It’s really starting to make my head itch.

 

 

 

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A Vote for Jill Stein is a Vote for Jill Stein

If you are into politics, even remotely, you have undoubtedly become aware of the radical insurgence of Jill Stein and the Green Party.

Bernie Sanders recently stepped aside after a rigged “Democratic” primary and unleashed a cluster-bomb of liberal voters, along with parting instructions for his followers to vote for Hillary Clinton, in order to defeat the evil Donald Trump.

In a normal election year, voters would likely heed Sanders’ advice, but there is nothing normal about the 2016 presidential election.

While there is an argument to be made that a vote for Jill Stein is actually a half-vote for Donald Trump, to believe this is to take an overly simplistic view of the dynamics of the current political situation in America.

The two largest political blocks in the United States are Independent voters and non-voters.

Independent voters make up 43% of the electorate and the majority of them had no intention to support Secretary Clinton to begin with.

It is also important to note that over 93 million eligible voters opt not to vote at all in presidential elections.

Many of these people choose not to vote because they have been disenchanted with their options in past elections.

In order for these people to get over their apathy and participate, they require a new and refreshing voice.

Add to this the 13 million people who voted for Bernie Sanders and the millions of disenfranchised voters, who were locked out of closed “Democratic” primaries and are seeking a new home, and it becomes obvious, that due to this confluence of factors, America is finally ready for the rise of a third-party.

It is important to note that there is a similar movement taking place on the right side of the political spectrum with Libertarian Gary Johnson holding firm at 10%, as many Republicans are looking for a new home as a result of the hostile takeover of the GOP by Donald Trump, but this article will be focusing specifically on the false narrative that “a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump.”

To assume that Hillary Clinton is somehow entitled to the votes of people who do not agree with her politics is ludicrous.

It is like asking someone if they would like to be shot, waiting for them to say “No.” and then pretending that this means that they would enjoy being stabbed.

While the above simile is ridiculous, it is no more ridiculous than Clinton supporters assuming that everyone who opposes Donald Trump, automatically would throw their support behind a candidate that represents everything they hate.

In a normal election year, many of these people would simply choose not to vote.

Some would even cast a grudge vote for the opposing party, due to their anger at being cheated by the DNC.

When you look at it from this perspective, you see that Jill Stein could potentially even help Hillary Clinton.

While it is true that corporate media, working hand in hand with the Clinton campaign, have done an excellent job of scaring millions into voting for Hillary, based solely on the premise that she is not Donald Trump, many reject this ideology of fear and refuse to support any candidate that does not represent their core values.

A vote for Jill Stein is nothing like a vote for Donald Trump.

In fact, a shocking new study reveals that a vote for Jill Stein is actually a vote for Jill Stein.

In 2008 there was a false movement started by Hillary Clinton supporters, known as PUMA.

PUMA was an acronym representing the words Party Unity My Ass.

This movement’s lack of an imaginary name was only exceeded by the lack of conviction found in it’s members.

PUMA turned out to be a giant bluff.

In the end, Clinton supporters caved and voted for Obama.

They patted themselves on the back for being good Democrats and came back eight years later to support their rejected candidate.

Of course, Clinton supporters did not take the Bernie or Bust movement seriously.

They couldn’t even take their own movement seriously.

Why would they believe that there were millions of Americans who would have the courage to follow their convictions when they themselves did not?

They caved, so they expected others to cave.

The DNC made the fatal error of assuming that Sanders’ supporters were loyal Democrats, when by and large Sanders’ success was based on the fact that millions had become fed up with the corporate antics of the “Democratic” Party.

After watching PUMA turned to roadkill, it was only natural that the DNC would assume that Bernie or Bust voters would rally behind Hillary Clinton, especially with the specter of Donald Trump looming.

But if anything, PUMA was the beginning of the end for the “Democratic” Party.

The assumption that Sanders supporters could be reabsorbed once Clinton was nominated caused the leadership to be careless in the treatment of said supporters.

Bridges have been burnt and there seems to be no effort by the arrogant, corporate party to make amends.

While loyal Democrats keep reminding us that Bernie and Hillary voted in lockstep 93% of their shared time in the Senate, they are only exemplifying their complete lack of understanding of Sanders’ political revolution.

Clinton and Sanders may be somewhat similar on policy, but Sanders’ movement was one of ideology and when it comes to philosophy the chasm between the two candidates is vast and all encompassing.

Clinton is the embodiment of everything Sanders’ revolution stood in opposition to.

Sanders voters, hungry for social justice, are left starving by Clinton’s neo-liberal facade.

In fact, some leftists are willing to suffer through four years of Donald Trump, just to send the message to the DNC that their tactics will not be tolerated.

In the midst of Wikileaks exposing the corruption of the “Democratic” Party, there is a once in a lifetime opportunity for America to finally break the shackles of it’s corporate two-party system.

Enter leftist anti-Democrat, Jill Stein.

Jill Stein is more than just methadone for Bernie Sanders addicts.

She is a true revolutionary voice and an activist not afraid to do time on the front lines.

Although Stein lines up nicely on policy with Sanders, she is much more vocal than he is, regarding the corruption in the “Democratic” Party.

Whereas Sanders focused completely on issues and his message of political revolution, Stein is angry and not afraid to call out Hillary Clinton directly.

Where Sanders was hogtied by Clinton’s accusations of sexism, Stein has no such obstacle.

Jill Stein is not afraid to speak the truth about Clinton and millions of people scorned by the election rigging in the “Democratic” primary are flocking to her message.

Still, there are those who are locked into binary thinking, who insist that voting for Jill Stein is actually indirectly voting for Donald Trump.

But contrary to popular belief, politics is not horse racing and our vote is not a bet on whom we think will be victorious.

A person’s vote is meant to represent one’s personal values and anyone who tells you otherwise has an agenda.

The American vote is sacred, as it is based on the blood of our ancestors, who literally gave their lives for this right, that so many take for granted.

While it is true that a single vote rarely has an impact on something so grandiose as a presidential election, this does not mean that one’s vote is unimportant.

To vote is to cast one’s thoughts into action and to tell your government, in a very direct way, exactly how you feel about what they are doing and what you expect from them going forward.

All the Facebook and Twitter posts in the world do not equate to the power and sanctity of a single vote and it is for this reason that a vote for Jill Stein is anything but a vote for Donald Trump.

A vote for Jill Stein is a middle finger in the face of tyranny.

A vote for Jill Stein is a protest vote against a party that rigged an election against a good man.

A vote for Jill Stein sends the message, loud and clear, that we will not support any candidate who attempts to usurp our democracy.

To vote for Hillary Clinton, after the way the DNC smeared and threatened Bernie Sanders, is to sanction such activities.

We would have no one to blame, but ourselves, when future elections were rigged.

Voting for the lesser of two evils is what brought us to this point and Americans have, at long last, decided to stand up to the illusion of choice, in the corporate two-party system and throw their support behind a movement, that will help guarantee, that we will never again find ourselves locked in a system so broken, that it spits out a corporate controlled warmonger and a racist reality TV star and then pretends that we have choice.

Still there are those who don’t have the fortitude required to support a third-party candidate.

They fear a vote for Stein or Johnson will allow the other side to win and they just couldn’t live with themselves should that happen.

To appease these people, I propose logic, in place of guilt.

Unless you live in a swing state (a state that is closely contested and is never consistently won by either party), your single vote will not affect the outcome of your state’s election.

This allows you the freedom to vote your conscience, without fear that you have helped elect someone you dislike.

In Indiana, where I live, Donald Trump has three times as many voters as Hillary Clinton.

In essence, my vote is wasted if I vote for either Clinton or Trump.

Trump is going to win regardless of how I vote.

Jill Stein will most certainly not win Indiana, so I must use my vote as part of a larger picture.

Even though Stein is unlikely to win my state, my vote will go towards supporting the Green Party and increasing their status in future elections.

This means that in 2020, Americans will have more choice.

We will have more voices on the debate stage and a third-party candidate will start the election cycle as a household name, instead of having to battle from obscurity.

When you look at things this way, you realize that non-swing state voters make their vote count more by supporting a third-party candidate.

So if you are angry at your lack of choice in this election, rejoice!!

You have an opportunity to make things different in America on a permanent basis.

If you vote for the lesser evil, then evil always wins.

The time to vote for the greater good is now.

The time to break out of the corporate, binary system is at hand.

Don’t let fear-mongers take away your voice.

Don’t be deceived by false narratives, designed to trick you into supporting someone who doesn’t represent your values.

Your vote is your voice.

Don’t ever let ANYONE take that away from you or make you feel bad for exercising your personal freedom.

Don’t be afraid to vote third-party.

Future generations will benefit greatly from your benevolence.

 

 

 

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How To Make Bernie Sanders Turn Green

A little more than a year ago, Jane Sanders sat with her husband Bernie, at a Denny’s restaurant in Vermont, discussing the possibility of making a presidential run.

Bernie and Jane knew that it was a long-shot, given that they would have to run against the Clinton’s, the most powerful political machine in Washington.

Bernie liked being a Senator.

He enjoyed walking to work every morning and he loved improving the lives of his constituents.

Sanders, was never a Washington insider, in fact he pledged no allegiance to any party.

Every weekend, he enjoyed flying home from Washington D.C. to see his grandchildren.

Bernie Sanders was living the life he had always dreamed of.

Still, after nearly 40 years of voicing his Progressive ideals (often to an empty room), things in America were not changing.

Sanders wanted to see real change.

As a Senator, he was able to impact lives in Vermont, but year after year he watched his country slide further and further away from the ideals he had spent his life fighting for.

Bernie was torn.

As if by Providence, a disabled veteran shuffled over to the table and thanked Sanders for helping him to get his benefits a few years earlier.

He told Bernie that Sanders had changed his life and that if the Vermont Senator ever decided to run for President, that he would do anything he could to support him.

Jane looked across the table and said

“I think you should do it.”

There has been much confusion from Sanders’ diehards over the last month.

Many are perplexed at how a man who stood up and said “enough is enough” to multinational corporations could suddenly be supporting the Queen of Wall Street, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Many in the Sanders’ camp are feeling betrayed and despite Sanders’ half-hearted endorsement of Clinton and his nonstop rants against Donald Trump, more than half of his supporters are blatantly refusing to vote for someone who they view as the epitome of everything they are fighting against.

Sanders has lost control of his own revolution.

His neophyte subversives have grown up and left the Democratic Party, all but guaranteeing a Trump victory in November.

After Sanders’ Clinton endorsement, the revolution pivoted suddenly toward anti-corporatist Jill Stein, who has been more than happy to pick up the pieces of a shattered Democratic Party and put them together in a new Green vision that encapsulates many of the same ideals that Sanders spent the last several decades working towards.

Bernie’s revolution is out of control.

As the Democratic Party tosses platform crumbs at angry Americans, in hopes of luring them back into the fold, record numbers of voters are fleeing an organization that no longer represents their values.

Sanders has started a fire that cannot be put out.

Hillary Clinton continues to slip in the polls, while spending tens of millions of dollars trying to convince Americans that she is better for the country than Donald Trump and it simply isn’t working.

The people are tired of war.

They are tired of tax breaks for the wealthy elite.

And they are tired of promises from a candidate who has lied to them repeatedly.

Hillary Clinton is the girl who cried wolf and now the wolf is at the door, in the person of Donald Trump and the American people are reveling in her screams.

Hillary Clinton is in trouble.

And not even Bernie Sanders can save her.

So what does this have to do with Bernie Sanders becoming President?

Sanders has already been cheated out of the Democratic nomination.

Under what scenario could he rise from the ashes and ascend to America’s highest office?

To answer this question we need to understand what drives this great man.

Bernie Sanders was raised in a tiny Brooklyn apartment.

His parents were poor and often fought over money.

Sanders knew from a very young age that poverty made life difficult for the American family and it triggered something deep inside him.

Sanders has literally been fighting against people like Donald Trump his entire life and it is Sanders’ contempt for bullies that has caused him to endorse, in Hillary Clinton, that which he has so vehemently opposed.

To Sanders, this is political, yet also deeply personal.

Bernie is the tough Brooklyn kid and Trump, the soft, arrogant prep-schooler.

In short, Bernie wants to knock Trump on his ass.

He’s been waiting for this moment his entire life.

While young revolutionaries compare and contrast four years of Trump’s Idiocracy versus eight more years of Clinton Oligarchy (Clinton would run unopposed as the incumbent in 2020), Sanders is willing to trade everything he has worked for, in order to stop this ignorant bigot from coming to power.

Sanders has no interest in personal glory, but instead has traded on his endorsement to move the Democratic platform to the left.

The problem is that the Democratic Party’s leftist movement is only a feint and any platform promises made now will likely be forgotten once Clinton takes her crown and scepter.

Sanders must know this, on some level, but is perhaps blinded by his desire to do “anything in his power to stop Donald Trump.”

Therein lies our leverage.

Bernie Sanders will join Jill Stein on the Green Party ticket only if he believes that there is no other way to defeat Donald Trump.

Recent polls show Trump at 45% and rising while Clinton is at 40% and falling.

Gary Johnson is holding strong at 10% while Jill Stein is at 5% and expected to surge very strongly in the coming weeks.

Just as Johnson is picking up votes from Republicans who dislike Trump, Stein is benefiting from liberals who refuse to vote for Clinton in the vacuum created by Sanders’departure.

While Clinton spends millions trying to guilt Americans into voting for her lesser-evilism, Green Party voters need to accept that a vote for Stein will ultimately help Trump.

This should not discourage activists from supporting Stein, but quite the opposite.

Jill Stein is an excellent use of one’s vote, both ethically and strategically.

Not only is she the only decent candidate left in the race (sorry Gary Johnson eliminates himself from serious contention by supporting TPP), but supporting Jill Stein could possinly lead to the return of Bernie Sanders.

If Stein continues to surge, then Trump’s lead over Clinton will widen and ultimately become insurmountable.

If this happens, Sanders will have little choice but to accept Jill’s invitation to take over as the Green Party nominee.

Remember how torn Sanders was a year ago, when he was considering his presidential run?

Right now, he is in the exact same place.

Perhaps he and Jane are sitting in that same Vermont Denny’s, talking about what a mess this entire race has become.

But Bernie Sanders is not going to come out of retirement for a party that is polling at 5%.

But if the Green Party were on the ballot in 47 states and polling at 15% this would mean that Trump would have an insurmountable lead over Clinton and Sanders would have little choice but to join Stein and carry his millions of supporters with him.

So if you want Bernie Sanders to be President there are a few things you must do immediately.

1. Change your political affiliation to the Green Party. The easiest way to do this is to click the link above or to visit your local Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
2. Make sure that the Green Party is on the ballot in your state. Again, you can click the blue link above to get started.
3. Canvass, phone-bank and donate for/to Jill Stein. Again, you can click the link above to get started. I know canvassing and phone-banking is scary, but not nearly as scary as the thought of eight years of Hillary Clinton warmongering.

Time is running out.

This is a once in a lifetime chance to raise a third-party in America.

If Jill Stein polls at 15% then we can get her on the debate stage with Trump and Clinton to further our Progressive agenda and possibly pull Bernie Sanders onto the Green Party ticket.

Bernie Sanders still has an outside chance to become President of the United States and Stein can run for President in 2020, but in order for this to happen there must be a tremendous amount of political activism from those who had previously supported Senator Sanders.

The worst thing that would happen is that America would have a legitimate third-party to represent the people, not the corporations, in 2020.

We have to reach 18 million people in the next 60 days to lure Bernie back into the race.

We have to work as hard for Jill as we worked for Bernie.

We will need to apply everything we have learned over the past year.

We can do this, but we have to start today.

The fate of the free world is literally depending on it.

 

 

 

 

Donald Trump’s Tire Emporium

Indiana is Trump territory, so I often find myself surrounded by good ol boys and me with my Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders button and my car plastered in leftist stickers.

This morning my neighbor was struggling with a flat tire, so I told him to throw it in my car and I drove to this wheel shop in the hood that I have frequented for years.

As they were working on his tire, you could see all the guys in the office pointing at my car and talking.

I imagined, perhaps falsely, that they were thinking I was a communist, even though I doubted that any of them could even give a definition of what the word meant.

I reminded myself that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.

I went into the office and asked if one of them would look at my tires and tell me if I needed any replacements.

I mentioned that I had to drive to Philadelphia this weekend.

They looked at my nerdy neighbor and my Bernie Sanders button and I imagined that I could feel a chill in the air.

Through an odd twist of fate, I end up standing in some wheel shop that’s 110 degrees, with my white entitlement, asking these blue collar dudes to get on their knees and look at my tires.

I always have trouble asking people to serve me.

I don’t like to put myself above anyone.

I have to remind myself that for this to work, we have to all serve one another.

One of the guys went out, hit the dirt, checked everything out and told me that all my tires were good and I tossed him a few bucks to adjust the pressure.

We don’t want any blowouts on the road to restoring democracy.

I stood there, trying not to look at my phone, because I was already feeling inconsequential and elitist and to even look at it would have been tantamount to firing a Hispanic maid for stealing money off the dresser and then finding it in my coat pocket a week later.

So I just stood there watching him air up my tire.

That was my penance for automotive ignorance.

When he was finished, we went into the office so I could pay and one of the guys asked…

“You need any Trump stickers for your car? I got a bunch?”

They all laughed.

“I’m good.” I said with a smile.

“What are you goin’ to Philly for?” one of the gentlemen queried.

“We’re going to stop Hillary Clinton.” I replied.

They all burst into laughter and said words of approval.

“I bet you guys like Trump for the same reasons I like Bernie.” I said “He doesn’t take any shit and he speaks up for the working man, guys like you and me.”

At the end of my sentence, I rolled up my sleeve, revealing my Bernie Sanders tattoo.

These guys all had tattoos and I wanted them to know that our tribes weren’t so different.

“What do you think of Trump taking Mike Pence as his VP?” one man asked.

“Honestly, Trump did me a favor. I’ve been trying to get that piece of shit out of Indiana for two years.”

There were laughs all around, so I continued speaking..

“Pence is always trying to take rights away from women. It’s her goddamned body. It ain’t none of my business what a woman does with her body and it ain’t none of Mike Pence ‘s business either.”

All the men nodded in agreement.

I thought how much better our world had become in my short life, that even these guys, who I probably don’t agree with on some issues, could still recognize that a woman’s right to choose is sacred.

I paid and got the fuck outta Dodge.

As I was leaving, one of the guys yelled.

“I think Bernie’s alright!!”

And one of the other guys said

“Hey! I do, too!!”

A Pasty White Jill Stein Supporter on Dan Savage: Just No

There simply are no words to convey how much I love Dan Savage, but recently I had to breakup with him.

 

This breakup will come as news to Dan, who only knows me as the guy who called his show every week for the last year, telling him why it was important for him to use his celebrity to endorse Bernie Sanders and to denounce Hillary Clinton.

Dan never even knew that we were dating.

I stalked his brilliant brain and amazing voice through his Podcast, Savage Love, for years.

I admired him from afar by reading his excellent blog.

And when he was on TV, I would hang on his every word and admire how incredibly gorgeous he was while dispensing compassionate advice about love and sex.

Whenever I would meet someone who knew of Dan Savage, I would inevitably exclaim…

“Oh my God!! Dan Savage is my hero!!”

And he was…

 

But I have to DTMFA (“dump the motherfucker already”, in Savage-speak)

It’s what he would suggest, should I call his show for advice.

His party-unity gaslighting has become abusive.

I know that I deserve better.

Perhaps you are wondering..

“Who the hell is Dan Savage and why the hell should I care about this?”

That’s a fair question.

Dan is a best-selling author, a blogger and a Podcaster.

Through these mediums he reaches millions.

Over the years I have followed him in all of his forms.

When my kids were wondering about sex, I purchased Dan’s books for them, because I knew that his advice was almost always spot on.

When my partner and I had questions about our own adventures, it was Dan who guided us through.

 

Dan is a hardcore advocate for LBGT+ rights and I am a firm believer that his “It Gets Better” program has saved thousands of lives.

For this reason alone, I will always love him.

Dan Savage is a damn fine man, but in his attempt to walk the Bernie/Hillary tightrope over the last year, he has fallen and completely missed the net.

Dan Savage, a former revolutionary voice, has now become just another shill for the establishment and I am deeply saddened to watch this former champion fall so far.

Yesterday, I realized that I had forgotten to block him on Facebook (a MUST to preserve one’s sanity during a breakup) and his new article entitled Jill Stein: Just No appeared in my feed.

I read the header to my former Savage-loving, LBGT rights radical, 14 year old daughter, where Dan refers to Jill Stein supporters as “pasty white people”.

My girlfriend said “Wow. So he’s a racist now?”

I said “I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a racist, but he sure has lost his way.”

My gender-fluid child Chloe, summed it up perfectly when she said

“Dan Savage: Just No.”

To be fair, some of my anger at Dan is simply transference at the LBGT+ community as a whole.

It is definitely treacherous territory, a liberal like myself, admitting to being angry at a community of people that I have spent my entire life fighting alongside, but here I am.

When Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for president, the gay and lesbian communities rallied around her in a way that simply made very little sense to me.

 

I’d post something negative about Hillary Clinton on social media and notice that my followers would drop significantly.

When I would see my gay friends at a party or club, they went out of their way to avoid me.

Some even took to calling me “Bernie-bro” in a manner that was clearly designed to be hurtful.

I wanted to engage them.

I really wanted to talk about this.

I wanted to know…

 

“How can you support a candidate who worked tirelessly to pass DOMA?”

 

“How can you support a candidate who so recently stood on the Senate floor and sold us all out by saying ‘Marriage is, as it has always been, between a man and a woman.‘”

“How can you support a candidate who lied and said that she and Nancy Reagan supported AIDS victims in the 80’s, when the truth of the matter is that the Reagan’s laughed at the epidemic and implied that it was some sort of plague from God to wipe out homosexuals?!”

These were friends I had attended rallies with.

These were friends I had protested side by side with.

And now they were blindly supporting someone who had spent her entire political career fighting against gay and lesbian rights?

Conversely, I would show them evidence that Bernie Sanders had been fighting for LBGT rights for decades.

I showed them evidence that Sanders risked his political career, by standing up for our movement.

Their replies were nearly unanimous..

“She’s evolved on that issue.”

or

“She’s with us now.”

My retort…

“She’s with us now, when it would be political suicide not to be. When we needed her she was fighting against us.”

 

I actually started this article nearly two months ago.

I was at the Indianapolis Gay Pride Parade, like I am every summer.

As I stood there in the sweltering heat, I watched an endless parade of Gays For Hillary shirts and I wondered how this had happened.

How did Hillary Clinton manage to gain the backing of a group of people that she had worked so hard to oppress?

 

And as every single gay Hillary supporter I have asked for a year, has refused to give me an answer that even mentioned policy, I am forced to speculate.

I think some of it comes down to the fact that Bernie Sanders has zero curb-appeal, whereas Hillary Clinton reminds me of every safe-place Mom I knew growing up.

There was always that house, in every neighborhood, where the liberal Mom would invite us in and accept us without judgment, whenever our own parents would throw us out.

There were always old men trying to lure us in as well, but we knew to avoid those houses.

Before I knew about Hillary’s history of genocide or the fact that she accepts donations from for-profit prisons or sold weapons to governments that used the weapons to kill gays, I imagined Hillary as a nurturing mother who had my best interests at heart.

Perhaps my gay friends who support Hillary are like I was in 2008, when I listened to Obama speak three times and then said..

“He’s pro-choice, he’s pro-LBGT and he’s black? What’s not to like?”

Perhaps my LBGT sisters and brothers who support Hillary are just engaged in identity politics or maybe gays voting for Hillary is the ultimate case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Maybe they feel that she is more of an ally than Sanders, because they actually had to sway her to their side, whereas Sanders was always there.

Or maybe they bought in to the Clinton propaganda that “If you don’t vote for Hillary, we will get Trump.” and their desire to protect gay marriage versus the evil Republicans made up their minds for them.

Never mind that there is a good chance that Hillary will lose to Trump, whereas Sanders defeats Trump by a landslide in every single poll.

On the surface, this seems like solid reasoning.

Many are quick to point out that this election is actually about who gets to nominate Supreme Court judges and I agree that it is better to elect a candidate who would nominate liberals to these positions.

But anyone who knows politics knows that all of the potentially vacant seats are currently occupied by conservatives, so in the worst case scenario, after Obama nominates, liberals will still have a 5-4 advantage.

Trump will have no opportunity to overturn gay marriage and has expressed repeatedly that he has no desire to do so.

If Clinton were actually a leftist, who would nominate true liberals to those empty seats, then I would consider holding my nose and voting for her, but Rodham is no liberal.

She is a moderate Republican in disguise and would only nominate corporatist war-hawks that would likely cause as much trouble as anyone Trump would nominate.

As gay marriage will not be threatened by this upcoming election, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to nominate a true liberal to our nation’s highest office.

So I will vote my conscience and support Jill Stein, should the Democrats make the fatal mistake of nominating Hillary Clinton.

Should Trump win, we will block his every move by replacing Congress with real Progressives and be in a very strong position to take The White House in 2020.

Raising a legitimate third party in America should be the number one priority of every liberal, after the shenanigans we have seen from the “Democratic” Party in 2016.

Trump would be an acceptable setback for the ultimate greater good.

Clinton would be a two term disaster and supporting her means that we cannot run any true liberals in 2020 as she would run unopposed.

I am disappointed in you, Dan.

In this election your stood for nothing and fell for everything.

Your endorsement of Hillary Clinton, a hateful woman, who has fought against our cause for decades, is a slap in the face to everyone who has ever fought for equality.

You had the opportunity to be courageous and endorse someone who has spent his entire life fighting for us, but when we needed you, you chose the cowardice of neutrality.

You chose lesser evilism over revolution in a time when our country severely needed to boldly choose that which is good.

Everything that drew me to you and kept me with you for all these years seems to have left you.

Although I fully accept that my voice is greatly diminished, in your eyes, by my “pasty white” skin, I know that I will never allow myself to be defined by such rigid terms.

First and foremost I am a human and an ally.

I am a liberal and an activist.

The Dan Savage I fell in love with would have told the “Democrats” to DTMFA in regards to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

You had the eyes and ears of the LBGT+ community and you told them to accept a woman who had sold them out time and time again.

You hurt me and it will take a long time to forgive you.

This isn’t just about politics.

This is bigger.

Voting against this corrupt, untrustworthy warmonger is an ethical choice.

It is a moral choice.

This is about being true to what we KNOW is right.

 

I loved our years together, but you’ve changed.

You aren’t the “take no shit” Dan Savage I fell in love with once upon a time.

Your constant harping on how I am not a good citizen if I refuse to support your corrupt, genocidal, Monsanto-sponsored candidate border on abusive.

And I have too much respect for myself to endure this another day.

 

 

Dear Democratic Party, I’m Leaving You and I’m Taking the Kids

As an American citizen, I have some expectation that I have a voice in my government.

This is probably naive, but this belief is a huge part of the foundation on which I build my happiness.

This is not simply an entitlement.

It is a right paid in blood by the warriors who came before me and one I have a duty to pay forward.

Millions gave their lives for democracy.

America invades developing nations in the name of democracy.

Our country was founded on the idea of giving liberty to those who were oppressed by tyrannical governments.

Democracy is the cornerstone of what makes us America and if we are even to begin to make the argument that this is the greatest country in the world, then we must first be willing to fight for the rights of all citizens to have a say in this social contract we are all engaged in.

Rigging an election, rather it is done in a blatant manner, like actually using machines to flip votes or in a more subtle manner, like working with the corporate media to convince Americans that one candidate has already won, in an attempt to discourage citizens from exercising their voice, is more than just a slap in the face to the American voter, it is an assault on the sacrifices of the brave women and men who laid down their lives for our right to participate in a democracy.

It is the ultimate in cowardice.

It is a crime against our ancestors.

The blood of heroes means nothing to those who feed on power.

The cries of the poor and evaporating middle-class disappear into a bottomless, corporate void.

They see an America where you have to pay to be heard.

They see an America where money buys power and the poverty stricken fight for the crumbs of a faux democracy.

I have always been a proud Democrat.

I spent my life going to rallies and protests, writing letters, raising awareness on liberal issues and trying to help those in need.

The Democrats aligned themselves closely with the issues that were near and dear to my heart.

For 25 years I fought for LBGT+ rights, fair immigration laws, a woman’s right to choose, gun control and fair working conditions for all Americans.

Although I am a cliche vegetarian, bleeding-heart artist, who boycotts Monsanto, WalMart, Chic Fil A and Hobby Lobby…

Although I am a steadfast ally for equality for all humans..

Although, I am in every way, a liberal..

I am no longer, in any way, a Democrat.

My former party has aligned itself with corporate greed and although you won’t find them pounding The Bible or fighting against Roe v Wade, they are every bit as reprehensible, in the fact that they are now loyal only to corporations and they no longer represent the will of the people.

 

When my party decides to build A WALL(!!!) around their convention, in fear that perhaps democracy might find a way in, then they are no longer my party.

When my party crowns an Empress, before the first vote is even cast, then they are no longer my party.

When my party colludes with corporate media heads to falsify “the news” and deceive the American people into not voting, then they are no longer my party.

In August, when I arrive home from the “Democratic” Convention and the (not so) super-delegates hammer the final nail into the coffin of our democracy by anointing Hillary Clinton, then I will leave the “Democratic” Party and spend the remainder of my years fighting against them.

This is not about sour grapes.

I’m a leftist in a conservative state.

I’m used to losing.

This is about defending democracy against a party that repeatedly used closed primary voter suppression and blatant electioneering to nominate a corporately-owned Oligarch, who does not represent the people.

This is about stopping the internal usurping of my party by lobbyists for the ruling elite.

This is about shining a bright light into the dark corners of a party that takes millions from those who exploit our citizens and then pretends to fight against those very entities.

This is about finally realizing that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

This is about fighting for something good and decent, before it is too late.

I cannot pretend to be innocent.

I have been complicit in their wily subterfuge.

I knew the system was rigged, but the “Democratic” Party are masters of marketing.

They knew that if they ran the right cult of personality, then well meaning fools like myself would fall in line smiling, feeling as if we had done some good by fighting against the Bush’s and Romney’s in the party of evil.

A good ol boy, who plays the sax and jogs to McDonald’s every morning?

“He’s got my vote!!”

A charismatic black man who promises hope and change and simultaneously placates my white guilt?

“It’s about time!!”

A female candidate to make me feel like I’m doing my part to overcome centuries of oppression aimed at women and an opportunity to elect someone my daughter can look up to?

This is the part in the movie where you hear the sound of the needle clumsily falling off the record.

I know about Hillary Clinton.

I know what she did and I know what she stands for.

I already said no to her in 2008 and what I have learned about her since, means that I could never, in good conscience, vote for her.

Sorry, I already bailed out the big banks.

I certainly won’t be supporting their candidate.

The Democratic Party has marginalized the poor and middle-class; the very foundation that once made them great.

They do not stand for the people, any more than Republicans do.

It is all one gigantic bi-partisan puppet show, where corporations pull the strings of party-aligned marionettes, in an off Broadway production designed to distract and amuse the American voter.

In the post Citizen’s United America, it is no longer about party representation.

It is about who signs your checks.

When a genocidal, sociopathic, racist, recently homophobic, Goldman Sach’s sponsored, TPP lobbying, wire-tapping,  arms-trading, child-rapist defending, Henry Kissinger protege is now the face of my party…

Then I guess I’m at the wrong party.

I voted for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama…

But I will not, under any circumstance, vote for Hillary Clinton.

And I am as much of a feminist as anyone you will ever meet.

If Bernie Sanders does not create a new party, then I will be voting for Jill Stein and that is based on policy, NOT genitalia.

My fear and loathing for Hillary Clinton is based on her past transgressions and the absolute danger that I know she will be to world peace should she be allowed to steal this “election”.

My fear and loathing for Hillary Clinton is based on the fact that I know where her money comes from and to hand over the keys to the kingdom to her is the same as handing them over to the multi-national corporations themselves.

“If you don’t vote for Clinton then we will have President Trump!!”

Yeah, yeah, I thought about this.

Better to bear down and tough it out with Trump and get another shot at a Progressive in four years, then to allow Clinton to ruin 2020 also (some may not realize that the President runs unopposed by their own party if running for a second term, so a Clinton presidency would ruin any chance for a Progressive Democrat to run in 2020).

As bad as Trump is, he would just spin his wheels for four years.

Both Republicans and Democrats would vote down everything he tried to do.

The insiders hate him.

He has no government experience.

He can’t navigate it.

He would just be a four-year Jon Stewart punchline.

Trump is not the answer, but four years of his buffoonery is infinitely better than losing two elections to Clinton and her war machine.

Trump only talks about doing awful things.

Clinton has a proven track record of actually doing them.

I will give my party one final chance to keep me.

I will load up my car and drive to Philadelphia.

I will support Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination.

I will be a tiny dot in a sea of people who want to give their former party one final chance to save itself.

And if the party does not nominate Senator Sanders and right these awful wrongs perpetrated on the American people by this sham of an election, then we will form a new party from the ashes of the Democrats.

I will give the Democratic Party one last chance to keep me, because I want to believe that we can rebuild this from the inside.

I want to believe that all of this new blood that Senator Sanders brought into my old party will cleanse it of corruption and keep it going strong for another fifty years.

I want to believe that there are enough good people left in the party to wrestle it away from the corporate virus that has caused it to rot from the inside out.

I want to believe we can save the Democratic Party…

But if we can’t, we will walk away..

And build something new and inspiring.