Do we have any threads about gangbangers, who shoot other black people in the face, being sellouts and detriment to black peopłe? Just wondering if there was anything balancing out the multiple Clarence Thomas post.
I guess acting in the political minority of black people is the worse thing you can do.
Alone, he voted to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act that is credited with giving blacks political power in the South.
Whenever the court has rebuked prosecutors for removing blacks from a jury, Thomas has dissented. And when a 7-2 decision sided with a black manager at a Cracker Barrel who was fired after complaining about the mistreatment of another black employee, Thomas dissented. "Retaliation is not racial discrimination," he wrote.
Are you sure I don't vote? Every other thread you seem to be accusing me of keeping Republicans in power.This is your justification for not voting?
You act like the severity of the consequences of the gang activity is consistent between communities, or the victims of gang violence are random.Gang violence is, and has been for a long time, a very specific social ill that has negatively affected a lot of different communities. Those are the acts of desperate young people.
No, he's a sellout because of this!
All he does is vote the exact opposite of how 95% of black would vote in that position. Now what makes the stance of 95% of black people correct?Thomas is not just "acting in the political minority" (huh?), he's actively and knowingly working against the masses of Black people
This, as well as the other grievances, are just indefensible. Indefensible in general but made even worse that he's a Black man from a different era who saw the effects of discrimination and Jim Crow, ideas championed by the conservatives of that day, first hand.
Clarence Thomas: Society is overly sensitive about race
You act like the severity of the consequences of the gang activity is consistent between communities, or the victims of gang violence are random.
And why use other communities as an excuse? A black gang member that takes a black person's life violates their ultimate right, a right to life. And they aren't going to the white part of town to do it.
A black person spraying bullets into a park full of black families is just a desperate young person, but being a judge that disagrees with you politically by voting against the VRA is the anti-black one. Thomas is the one making black people worse off? Thomas is the one that hates black people?
All he does is vote the exact opposite of how 95% of black would vote in that position. Now what makes the stance of 95% of black people correct?
Thomas is too pro-white, but the 95%'s policies has lead to complete dependency on white people for economic and political well-being. Voting for a failing school model, criminal justice model, welfare, and labor restrictions are pro-black policies.
Thomas' actions are indefensible because he's going against the majority. In the black community that makes you a sellout as if going along with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or any other 95% leader doesn't work against the community. Is it because you don't think they do it actively and knowingly?
The point is are they sellouts like Thomas.Then they've earned the right to be arrested and tried for his crimes.
I absolutely reject the idea that it's "either/or". They're both "anti-Black".
But yes, Thomas is the one making Black people worse. We are not all subject to gang violence or live in violent, crime ridden neighborhoods (most of us don't) but Thomas' votes affect all of us and not just Black people.
I don't support his votes and I don't support your votes either.You can't be this obtuse.
Nevermind. Yes you can.
Thomas is all for that criminal justice system. He doesn't even think it's wrong to beat prisoners.
Tellingly, you don't actually support any of these votes, you just want to be contrary.
The point is are they sellouts like Thomas.
Black people purposely targeting other black people with the purpose of making them worse off should qualify them as a sellout.
A search of this board brings up multiple Thomas is a sellout threads, but almost none for people who actually bring death to black people qualifying as sellouts..
Apparently, the greatest sin a black person can commit is being on the wrong end of a 95%-5% political dynamic. Shooting a black person in the face is obviously secondary to that.
I don't support his votes and I don't support your votes either.
You're all a detriment to black people. I'm just trying to figure out why you and thoughtone and everyone else in this thread is such a moral superior to Thomas.
The point is are they sellouts like Thomas.
Black people purposely targeting other black people with the purpose of making them worse off should qualify them as a sellout.
A search of this board brings up multiple Thomas is a sellout threads, but almost none for people who actually bring death to black people qualifying as sellouts..
Apparently, the greatest sin a black person can commit is being on the wrong end of a 95%-5% political dynamic. Shooting a black person in the face is obviously secondary to that.
I don't support his votes and I don't support your votes either.
You're all a detriment to black people. I'm just trying to figure out why you and thoughtone and everyone else in this thread is such a moral superior to Thomas.
Where are the threads thoughtone. I can find at least 5 about Thomas. It seems like you only have the guts to call non-violent government figures sellouts, over the internet, but anyone that actually target and takes a black life is boring topic for you.I have said Black folk that kill and sell poison to other Black folk are enemies of Black folk and will continue to say it.
Problem is Uncle Clarence is in a position to change things, yet he choose to be a sell out!
That's never been the definition of a "sellout" so you're shifting the meaning of words to make some fanciful argument.
Those people are criminals but no more a "sellout" than a similar criminal of a different shade. Thomas has earned the distinction not by simply being on the 5% side but actively and knowingly working to harm the political and social advancement of the masses of Black people.
You feel that's an unreasonable definition I made up for the purpose of this thread?Black people purposely targeting other black people with the purpose of making them worse off should qualify them as a sellout.
You should at least have some base-level of humility that drives you to understand that it's a "working to harm the [perceived] political and social advancement of the masses of Black people."Thomas has earned the distinction not by simply being on the 5% side but actively and knowingly working to harm the political and social advancement of the masses of Black people.
That was obvious since you never met an Obama policy you didn't like.I know you don't, I said that.
So we're clear, based on your words, I think I'm morally superior to you too.
Seems odd how all of this is a travesty but outright killing US citizens "without a hearing" or any due process, other than a secret review by the Executive branch, is reasonable.
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Clarence Thomas IS NOT on the “wrong end” of any “political dynamic” or "acting in the political minority of Black people"; Clarence Thomas is certifiably clinically insane — irrespective of one’s race, or one’s ‘conservatism’ or ‘liberalism’.
Clarence is a one-percenter; — No not the 1% economic elite whose personal fortunes $$$$$$$$$ are dramatically escalating even as 99% of the earth’s ‘workers’ incomes and wealth are steadily shrinking. Clarence is in the one-percent club of schizophrenics — his primary untreated malady is his suffering from personal self-hatred and self-loathing. Rather than seek professional help, Thomas’s self-induced remedy for his obvious psychological illness has been to suppress his inborn intelligence that allowed him as a young man to do well in school — and instead turn himself into a cipher, blindly following a cult derived ideology called tentherism.
People who adhere to the tenants of tentherism are no different than the Christian religious cults who expect to be ‘raptured’ into the sky to meet Jesus, or the Islamic cults who commit suicide-murders and expect to meet 72 virgins in heaven, or the Heaven's Gate cult who believed that after committing suicide an extraterrestrial spacecraft would take them to the "kingdom of heaven."
Thomas’s rulings as a lifetime tenured member of the Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) have certified the fact that he has surrendered his will to his own self-induced dementia. Just like the cults referenced above Thomas has rejected facts and logic and instead has embraced barbarism over civilization. As a self-created cipher, who willfully has rejected critical reasoning and thinking, Thomas has allowed the empty space in his mind to be filled 100% with an extreme lunatic fringe ideology — an ideology easily proven demonstrably false by any high school senior that has at least a B average that attends a secular high school. Nonetheless, Thomas and his fellow cult followers of ‘tentherism’ continue to pompously and self-righteously portray themselves as a ‘persecuted minority’ slandered by the liberal elites.
The reason 99.999% of Black Americans reject Clarence Thomas is not the result of some “liberal plot” or brainwashing, it is because the epicenter of deluded Thomas’s belief system is that white supremacy, apartheid, racism — no longer exists in America.
All Black people who are not clinically insane like Thomas, know that racism is alive and well in America. Institutional racism such as what was revealed when the facts were uncovered about the ‘Banksters’ deliberately steering Black people into garbage high interest rate sub-prime mortgages, even though they had credit scores high enough to get a normal mortgage. De facto racism that all Black people experience daily as we walk the streets of America; — the assumption that we are criminals, the assumption by retailers that our credit cards are stolen, the request for four pieces of identification to take a couple-of-grand out of your own bank account, while you watch a white tourist with a British accent and NO identification cash a $5,000 check.
It doesn’t matter if you are Colin Powell or Jesse Jackson Sr., ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’; if you are in the reality based world you know that racism, racial stereotypes, and white supremacy still persist in America. Insane Clarence Thomas says NO, it doesn’t exist.
As a SCOTUS justice the decision that represents the pinnacle of Thomas’s insanity is his HAMDI V. RUMSFELD ruling. The case has nothing to do with race.
Clarence Thomas believes in facist ideology. Clarence Thomas does not believe that American citizens have a constitutional right to privacy. <b>Clarence Thomas WAS THE ONLY JUSTICE,</b> in a Supreme Court 8-1 ruling..............................<br /><font face="arial" size="3" color="#0000FF"><b><br />Supreme Court Declares Detention of U.S. Citizen Invalid (June 28, 2004) In an 8-1 ruling in the case<a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld"><u><br />HAMDI v. RUMSFELD</u></a></b></font><br /><br />..................against the BuShit gang who said:<br><br> <b>It was legal for the President of the United States on his own accord, not required to inform ANY OTHER BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT, to ORDER secret police (CIA, DIA, FBI etc.) to come to your door, Break that Door Down, Drag you and your Family Out, and Put you in Prison.<br />Clarence said that the president could ORDER this done without informing Congress or a Federal Judge.<br />Clarence said that once you were in Jail you had NO RIGHT EVER to a trial.<br />Clarence said you had NO RIGHT to even Speak to an Attorney.<br />Clarence said that the president could
- <u>KEEP YOU IN THAT JAIL INDEFINITELY</u>
- WITHOUT a hearing, <br />
- WITHOUT a trial, <br />
- WITHOUT access to an attorney, <br />
- WITHOUT access to any visitors,..........<br />
AS LONG AS HE WANTED TO WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILTY TO ANYONE!!!
In other words the State could "Disappear" you, just as the fascist regimes of Nazi Germany, Pinochet in Chile, Mobutu in Zaire, Kim Jong in North Korea </b>
<br /><br />Clarence Thomas is clinically insane
In another display of insanity and depravity, Clarence Thomas ALONE out of the nine SCOTUS justices in a 8-1 decision ruled that it was legal for prosecutors to withhold evidence from a defendant that would exonerate him from the crime that the same prosecutor had charged him with
In other words insane Thomas says that it is legal for a prosecutor to subject a defendant to the 'Kafkaesque' nightmare that the author George Orwell describes in his seminal work 1984 when O'Brien ask Winston “How many fingers, Winston?”
The case was Smith v. Cain. Juan Smith was convicted of 5 counts of murder and sent to prison for life in a New Orleans case solely based on the eyewitness testimony of a survivor of the murder. The survivor, Mr. Boatner, five days later, told the police and the prosecutors office that 'he had not seen the intruders’ faces and could not identify them.
The New Orleans prosecutor withheld this evidence from the defense attorneys representing Juan Smith.
Insane Clarence Thomas said that the prosecutors actions were perfectly legal in the United States of America
Anyone not able to recognize the insanity that is Clarence Thomas and who attempts to rationalize his behavior as some type of minority rights representation is either unwilling to just read Thomas's tortured logic inane opinions and let the words he has written reveal his mental disease and cult membership or they are just as insane as Thomas. </font>
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"President Obama has utterly failed the first test of his second term, even before inauguration day,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “His signature means indefinite detention without charge or trial, as well as the illegal military commissions, will be extended.”
"It's the second time that the president has promised to veto a piece of a very controversial national security legislation only to sign it," said Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. "He has a habit of promising resistance to national security initiatives that he ultimately ends up supporting and enabling."
You feel that's an unreasonable definition I made up for the purpose of this thread?
Can you define sellout like I did since the the definition I gave is some kind of misdirect?
You should at least have some base-level of humility that drives you to understand that it's a "working to harm the [perceived] political and social advancement of the masses of Black people."
That was obvious since you never met an Obama policy you didn't like.
But earlier, I stated that I don't understand why you think you're superior to Thomas. Both of you support fucked up policies. You just differ in the white people you like. How are you better again?
I was first called out, by you, in this thread June 2013. My first post in this thread was February 2014. Somehow in Dave and QueEx land, I'm the borderline troll picking a fight.Where's the "selling" part in your definition?
A person considered a "sellout" in our community has always been someone doing something negative to other Black people to gain in some tangible way from (generally)White benefactors. Your definition completely left out the transactional basis.
This entire discussion is a misdirect and you needing to squabble about whatever.
Thomas isn't just going against the 95% of Black voters but also Greed.
You think he's wrong too but you don't care for the choice of words used so instead of talking about the topic using your own words, you decide to pick fights with other posters.
That's some borderline troll behavior.
While you're asking me to show some humility, I'm looking for some maturity from you.
At least Muck provided cases. And perception is everything. That's why you have the inconsistency of Texas' voter ID being the devil but Pennsylvania's voter ID law doesn't register a blip.There is nothing left to perception with voting rights or prisoner abuse.
Those young Black men you want to think you care about? Thomas says they can legally be beaten in prison.
Somehow it's turned into my fault that all of you are caricatures. For a long time this board has been a parody of a parody of black people. Do we really need to actually make a post on whether you've met a welfare, regulation, restriction, or Democratic policy you didn't like? I say no. Then again, I'm not the 95%.
If you actually debated what I said instead of whatever caricature you've built up in your head, you would know that's far from the truth.
Where are the threads thoughtone. I can find at least 5 about Thomas. It seems like you only have the guts to call non-violent government figures sellouts, over the internet, but anyone that actually target and takes a black life is boring topic for you.
So you did an audit of the multiple threads referencing the Martin case, and found my responses lacking? Or more likely, you have no idea what I've posted in the 2 year timeframe about any of this.Check the main board.
Where is your condemnation of Zimmerman and Dunn?
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Reading comprehension is fundamental.
Any pathetic attempt to link the illegal actions undertaken by the BuShit crime family, with operations commenced by the Obama ‘White House’ in a futile attempt to show some reciprocity in actions between the clinically insane Clarence Thomas’s rulings which sanctioned the BuShit wrongdoings and the Obama administrations current operations — shows not only that one has not actually read all the relevant data but it also reveals a dramatic paucity of critical thinking ability.
The BuShit camarilla led by Cheney were operating using their defined concept called the “Unitary Executive” ; in other words the BuShit gang, operationally run by Cheney, believed in the fascist dictator model. Cheney told us in writing that he believed in the fascist dictator model.
Cheney wrote:
"The chief executive will on occasion feel duty bound to assert monarchical notions of prerogative that will permit him to exceed the laws," Read: HERE
Cheney's belief in the concept of the "Unitary Executive" comes from his experience serving as a capo working for the most criminally corrupt presidency in U.S. history, the Nixon regime. Nixon in 1971 said: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal"
Cheney's belief in the fascist dictator model was implemented on steroids when he became the de facto president during the BuShit years.
Cheney's consigliere was David Addington whose function was to try to find novel legal theories which would allow cheney to circumvent the Constitution of The United States Of America. You can read about all of Addington's schemes HERE: The Hidden Power
It was the orders of Dick Cheney who authorized the use of torture during the BuShit years; including torture that resulted in the deaths of at least 32 people that we know about —(who knows how many more deaths have been successfully covered up)
We now know that the explicit instructions to torture came from the 'white house' (Cheney) and Rumsfeld acting on the authorization Cheney gave him.
When Cheney gave those orders he knew he committing illegal acts. To try to cover-his-ass legally he instructed that some hand picked lawyers write a "Torture Memo" for him. You can read the "Torture Memo" HERE
Who was the lawyer Cheney picked to largely write the "Torture Memo"? His name is John Yoo. Where did John Yoo come from? He came from Clarence Thomas's office. He was the clerk that used to write most of Thomas's insane opinions. How sick is Mr. Yoo? Mr. Yoo said that "There is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles" READ: HERE
To compare any actions the Obama administration has authorized and undertaken, and seek to find equivalence with the willfully premeditated illegal actions of the BuShit years, —shows not only a loathing to accept rigorously analyzed truths — but a yearning to accept lies as reality, just like members of psychotic cults.
Obama unlike the BuShit gang has not attempted to set up a “Unitary Executive” fascist dictator model. The controversial use of drone strikes to kill ‘suspected’ so-called terrorists, who are also U.S. citizens is an issue which is out-in-the-open and being debated in a myriad of forums; the press, law schools et al.
If these strikes were occurring during BuShit, Cheney would of classified the entire operation as a “national security” secret and the only way the American people would ever hear about it would be leaks to the media.
The attempt to equate Thomas’s insane solo ruling, a ruling refuted by the other 8 SCOTUS justices — authorizing forced disappearance in HAMDI V. RUMSFELD — with the Obama administrations use of drones is not even worthy for use in comic relief .
Unlike the criminally illegal and secretive BuShit years, Obama himself is on the public airwaves discussing his view about the propriety of the drone program. On the October 18, 2013 John Stewart Daily Show, Obama said: <blockquote>
Obama: “One of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need Congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making,”
Stewart: “Here’s a little game that I like to call, “Still or No?” Before when you ran, (2008) you had things you thought, I wonder if four years as president has in any way changed that. Ok, first one is (you said) We don’t have to trade our values and ideals for our security.”
Stewart “Do you still feel that way?”
Obama: “We don’t.” There’s some things that we haven’t gotten done. I still want to close Guantanamo. We haven’t been able to get that through Congress. (applause) One of the things we got to do is put a legal architecture in place and we need congressional help to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president is reined in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making.
Now, there are some tough trade-offs. I mean, there are times where there are bad folks somewhere on the other side of the world and you got to make a call and it’s not optimal. But, when you look at our track record, what we’ve been able to do is to say we ended the war in Iraq. We’re winding down the war in Afghanistan. We’ve gone after Al Qaeda and its leadership. It’s true that Al Qaeda is still active, at least sort of remnants of it are staging in northern Africa and the Middle East and sometimes you’ve got to make some tough calls, but you can do that in a way that’s consistent with international law and American law.</blockquote>
During the BuShit years we saw BuShit gang members use the media solely for propaganda purposes,like the "Mushroom Cloud" "Weapons of mass destruction" scare tactics. We saw BuShit press secretary tell us ominously that "All Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do." All tactics one would expect from an administration using the fascist dictator model.
Clarence Thomas is clinically insane
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November 6, 2012
Some of you peeps are imbued with such incendiary hatred of Obama — that you’ve become pathological morons.
Are you really a simpleton once the ‘hatred of Obama disease’ is cured from your mind & body ?
No!
Once the disease is cured, suddenly you become lucid and rational and your IQ level returns to its above average level.
It’s like a childhood friend of mine, PhD in physics from MIT, speaks 8 languages fluently…….but in the 1980’s he became a crack cocaine addict. Brilliant man, but as long as he was addicted to crack, all his brilliance was irrelevant; he became a pathological moron; his body became a host for a debilitating drug that he almost did not recover from. He got help, he made a full recovery, and he’s now a scientist working at (HHMI) Howard Hughes Medical Institute; the “crack episode” a distant memory.
Those of us in the “reality based” world who understand U.S. political history always understood that Obama wasn’t a “liberal” or a true “progressive”. The last “liberal” or a true “progressive” that ran for the presidency was Howard Dean; and we all saw how the “military industrial media complex” quickly shut down his campaign, over his so-called disqualifying “Dean Scream”…..and went with “Skull & Bones” Senator John Kerry as the Democratic candidate.
Those of us who don’t rely on the corporate television media as our sole or primary source for information always knew Barack Obama was no “liberal” or a true “progressive”. That was confirmed when the corporate Democrats (DLC) Democratic Leadership Council founded in 1985 by Clinton, Gore, Lieberman etc., closed their doors and shut down, because their organization was superfluous due to the ascension of Obama who was and is a “Corporate Democrat”. We saw that his biggest campaign donor in 2008 was a place I worked at for 12 years Goldman Sachs; so those of us paying attention knew he was no “liberal” or a true “progressive”.
All of this being true:
There are those who tonight (Nov. 5th 2012) postulate the absurd notion that there is NO difference between Obama or RMoney or the defunct BuShit camarilla. Those who actually believe this are pathological morons, who have willfully, — because of their hatred for Obama, and their unwillingness to actually get off of the 'Obama hatred drug', — not allowed their smart brains to function normally.
I will let a true “liberal” and true “progressive” named Daniel Ellsberg help cure you peeps who have the hate Obama disease, and think somehow that RMoney or BuShit is the same as Obama.
If you don’t know who Daniel Ellsberg is, shame on you, — it means you don’t even know the last 40 years of U.S. political history.
Read true liberal & progressive Daniel Ellsberg's critique of Obama and why despite his critique, voting for Obama is the only rational choice given the choices that are available and the true fascism & evil that RMoney-Ryan represent.
Read the whole thing, I don't have time to bold & highlight in yellow the critical passages.
Ellsberg is responding to those, in this case, on the left who are thinking about NOT voting for Obama and voting for a third party candidate or not voting at all. Some smart people on the left also suffer from an incendiary hatred of Obama — and have become pathological morons.
Progressives: Defeat Romney/ Ryan in Swing States
by Daniel Ellsberg | October 30, 2012
ellsberg.net
<br>I agree with nearly everything Jill Stein of the Greens and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party say: except when they say “vote for me” in swing states.
<br>Here’s why:
<br>It is critical to prevent a Republican administration under Romney/Ryan from taking office in January 2013.
<br>The election is just a week away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally like mine—progressives, especially activists—to make this a high priority.
<br>An activist colleague recently said to me: “I hear you’re supporting Obama.” I was startled, and took offense.
<br>“I lose no opportunity,” I told him angrily, “to identify Obama publicly as a servant of Wall Street: a man who’s decriminalized torture and is still complicit in it, a drone assassin, someone who’s launched an unconstitutional war, who claims authority to detain American citizens and others indefinitely without charges or even to execute them without due process, and who has prosecuted more whistleblowers like myself than all previous presidents put together. Would you call that support?”
<br>My friend said, “But on <em>Democracy Now</em> you urged people in swing states to vote for him! How could you say that? I don’t live in a swing state, but I will not and could not vote for Obama under any circumstances.”
<br>I said to him: “Like it or not, we have a two-party system in America. The only real alternative for the next four years is Mitt Romney, who has endorsed every one of those criminal and unconstitutional offenses. And those are promises I believe he will keep. That’s a terrible situation, but it won’t be improved by replacing Obama with Romney.
<br>“I don’t ‘support Obama’. I oppose the current Republican party. Obama’s policies, as I see them, range from criminal to—at their best—improvements on the recent past, partial and inadequate. But current Republican policies range from criminal to disastrous. That’s not really a hard choice.”
<br>This not a contest between Barack Obama and a progressive—primary challenger or major candidate—or even a Republican who’s good on foreign policy and civil liberties like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. What voters in a handful or a dozen close-fought swing states are going to determine on November 6 is whether or not Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to wield great political power for four, maybe eight years.
<br>A Romney/Ryan administration would be no better on any of the constitutional violations I mentioned, or on anything else. But it would be catastrophically worse on many other important issues: The likelihood of attacking Iran, Supreme and Federal Court appointments, the economy and jobs, women’s reproductive rights, health coverage, the safety net, green energy and the environment.
<br>As Noam Chomsky said recently,“The Republican organization today is extremely dangerous, not just to this country, but to the world. It’s worth expending some effort to prevent their rise to power, without sowing illusions about the Democratic alternatives.”
<br>He also told an interviewer: “Between the two choices that are presented, there are I think some significant differences. If I were a person in a swing state, I’d vote against Romney/Ryan, which means voting for Obama because there is no other choice. I happen to be in a non-swing state, so I can either not vote or—as I probably will—vote for [Green Party candidate] Jill Stein.”
<br>I see it the same way. Chomsky lives in Massachusetts, a “safe” blue state. I too live in a non-swing state, blue California, so I too intend to vote for a progressive candidate, either Jill Stein or (as a write-in) my friend Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party.
<br>Along with Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Frances Fox Piven, Cornel West and others, I have encouraged others in non-swing states (including red states like Texas and Mississippi) to consider doing the same, in contrast to what we urge progressives in swing states to do, which is to vote against Romney/Ryan by voting for Obama/Biden.
<br>We see long-term merit for our movement in registering a large protest vote against both major candidates and in favor of a truly progressive platform. In the almost 40 non-swing states—red or blue—that can be done without significant risk of affecting the electoral votes of those states or the final outcome in favor of the Republicans.
<br>But that isn’t true in the dozen or less battleground states—Ohio, Virginia Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, along with Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania—where decisions by relatively small numbers of progressives to vote for a third party or not to vote at all would risk and might well result in a Republican triumph. That risk, as we see it, outweighs any benefits there might be in pursuing votes for a progressive third party in those states.
<br>I personally agree with almost everything Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson have to say—except when they say “Vote for me” in a swing state.
<br>This election is a toss-up. That means this is one of the uncommon occasions when we progressives—a small minority of the electorate—could actually determine the outcome of a national election. We might swing it one way or the other by how we vote and what we say about voting to fellow progressives in the battleground states.
<br>Given that third party candidates with genuinely progressive platforms are on the ballots of most of these swing states, their supporters—who might successfully encourage those with the same values to vote for Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson instead of Obama—could well provide the margin for Romney that would send him to the White House.
<br>If, to the contrary, such voters in those states could be convinced to overcome their disinclination to vote for Obama, they could crucially block the far more regressive agenda of the Republican Party.
<br>Our task is clear. The only way to block Romney/Ryan from office is to persuade enough people in swing states to vote for Obama—not stay home or vote for someone else. And that has to include progressives and disillusioned liberals who are inclined not to vote at all or vote for a third-party candidate (because like me, they’re not just disappointed but disgusted and even enraged by much of what Obama has done in the last four years and will probably keep doing).
<br>This is not easy. But it’s precisely the effort that is worth expending right now to prevent the Republicans’ rise to power. And it will take progressives—some of you reading this, I hope—to make that effort effectively.
<br>It’s true the differences between the major parties are not nearly as large as they and their candidates claim, let alone what we would want. In many aspects, especially in the areas of foreign and military policy and civil liberties that are the focus of my own activism, their policies closely converge (though small differences remain significant, all favoring Obama/Biden over Romney/Ryan).
<br>It’s even fair to use Gore Vidal’s metaphor that they form two wings (“two right wings&rdquo of a single party, the Money or Plutocracy Party, or as Justin Raimondo calls it, the War Party.
<br>Still, the reality is there are two distinguishable wings, and one is even worse than the other. To deny that reality serves only the possibly imminent, yet still avoidable, victory of the worse.
<br>The traditional third-party mantra, “There’s no significant difference between the major parties” amounts to saying: “The Republicans are no worse, overall.” And that’s absurd. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended. It’s crazily divorced from the present reality. (I say that although I agree with virtually every passionate criticism of Obama’s policies I’ve ever heard from the left. What I don’t hear from third-party partisans is comparable realism about the Republicans.)
<br>Some progressives who do acknowledge that the Romney/Ryan party is “marginally” worse in some respects nevertheless believe that “worse is better” for progress in the longer run, by evoking more effective protest and resistance—especially from Democrats in Congress and the media—and a popular turn to leftist leadership and policies. But, historically, they’re profoundly wrong. That hoary theory would seem to have been well tested and demolished by eight years under George W. Bush.
<br>And it’s very harmful to be propagating either of those false perspectives. They encourage progressives in battleground states either to refrain from voting or to vote for someone other than Obama, and more importantly, to influence others to do the same. That serves no one but the Republicans and the 1%, and not only in the short run.
<br>It is true that Obama has often acted outrageously, not merely timidly or “disappointingly.” If impeachment on constitutional grounds were politically imaginable, he’s earned it (like George W. Bush, and many of his predecessors.) It is entirely understandable to not want to reward him with another term or a vote that might be taken to mean trust, hope or approval.
<br>But to punish Obama by depriving him of progressives’ votes in battleground states and hence of office, in favor of Romney and Ryan, would serve to punish most of the poor and marginal in society, along with women, workers and the middle class. It would mean the end of Roe v. Wade, via Supreme Court appointments.
<br>And the damaging impact would be not only in the U.S. but worldwide. In terms of the economy, I believe the Republicans would not only deepen the recession, but could convert it to a Great Depression. They would attack women’s reproductive rights globally, and further worsen the environment and the prospects of climate change. Disastrously, it could lead to war with Iran (a possibility even with Obama, but far more likely under Romney).
<br>The re-election of Obama, in itself, is not going to bring serious progressive change, end militarism and empire, or restore the Constitution and the rule of law. That’s for us and the rest of the public to bring about after this election and for the rest of our lives—through organizing, building movements and agitating.
<br>But to urge people in swing states to “vote their conscience” by voting for a third-party candidate is dangerously misleading advice. I would say to a progressive in a battleground state that if your conscience is telling you to vote for someone other than Obama, you need a second opinion. Your conscience seems to be ignoring the realistic impact of your actions or inactions. You need to reexamine your estimates of likely consequences and moral reasoning.
<br>Our demonstrations, petitions, movement building and civil disobedience—including protest and resistance to the wrongful practices of the incumbent administration—are needed every month, every year, including campaign seasons like this one. (I faced trial two weeks ago, with fourteen others, for civil disobedience protesting Obama’s continued tests of the Minuteman III ICBM’s, my fifth arrest protesting policies of President Obama, including the treatment of Bradley Manning and the continuation of war in Afghanistan).
<br>But it has been clear for months that this is a moment when effective resistance to an even worse alternative administration that is within sight of power is also urgently needed, leading up to and on Election Day.
<br>In this last week of this campaign, there is no more effective or pressing political effort which progressives can undertake than to make their voices heard—through e-mails, blogs, social media and public appearances—to encourage citizens in swing states to vote against a Romney victory by voting for the only real alternative, Barack Obama.
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You didn't bring up Obama in your response because you're a proud hypocrite.
Clarence Thomas’s Disgraceful Silence
http://www.newyorker.com/clarence-thomas-disgraceful-silence.html
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<b>Clarence Thomas is clinically insane</b>
Yes I am "morally superior" to Clarence Thomas, just as the other eight SCOTUS justices are who said <b>NO</b> to legal authorizing the POTUS to order the forced disappearance BuShit asked for in HAMDI V. RUMSFELD.
Yes I am "morally superior" to Clarence Thomas's clerk John Yoo who said that: in his view it is legal for the President of the United States to order the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.
Yes I am "morally superior" to Clarence Thomas who ruled state prosecutors can willfully with hold evidence from a defendant that would show that the indicted defendant is innocent of the crime he/she is charged with.
The title of this thread is "Clarence Thomas A Lost Cause??"
I answered YES! I enlightened the peeps here about the ideological cult that Thomas adheres to which is the retrograde barbarism called Tentherism.
What was your answer to the question is "Clarence Thomas A Lost Cause??"
You attempted to defend Thomas's clearly apparent insanity by talking about Thomas being on the “wrong end” of some “political dynamic” or "acting in the political minority of Black people".
When those arguments were quickly debunked by the obstinate anti-human barbarism reflected in Thomas's written Supreme Court Opinions which <b>NONE</b> of the other eight justices concurred with, including the four other justices who are considered "conservatives" — you retreated to the curious argument that Obama is "just-as-bad" as the clinically insane Thomas — because of the Obama's administration's ongoing drone policy and the ongoing policy debates about detention.
I didn't mention Obama <b> AT ALL</b> in my RESPONSE but since you went there in a pathetic attempt to rescue Thomas from the proper label of "Clinically Insane" by equating the Obama years with the BuShit years. The BuShit years were when the executive branch of the United States were operated utilizing the "fascist dictator model". Somehow despite all of the easily obtainable, non-hidden data, you actually believe that what Obama has done so-far is comparable to the Cheney run "fascist dictator model" and accuse me of being a hypocrite?
If you like Thomas believe in "fascist dictator model" come-out and say so.
If you like Thomas believe in forced disappearance come-out and say so.
If you like Thomas believe that state prosecutors can willfully with hold evidence from a defendant that would show that the indicted defendant is innocent of the crime he/she is charged with –come-out and say so.
Take A Position!! Civilization? or Barbarism?
Stop cowering in the non-reality based world of false equivalence. This is not kindergarten or a cartoon strip where there is a "good guy" in a white hat and a "bad guy" in a black hat. "Politics is war without bloodshed". Politics is multifaceted and nuanced. Blacks used to overwhelmingly vote Republican; now they overwhelmingly vote Democrat – what changed? – policies and conditions 'on-the-ground' dictated Blacks migration to the Democrats. Days before the 2012 election when you were pushing the false meme of equivalence between RMoney & Obama I pointed out that you were suffering from "Obama Derangement Syndrome" because you could not differentiate <b> ANY DIFFERENCE</b> between the candidates. I pointed out that I was fully aware of Obama's corporate support and complicities but that that RMoney represented a return to the "fascist dictator model" and therefore I am supporting Obama. Your well-thought-out nuanced response was "fuck you".
<b>Clarence Thomas is clinically insane</b>
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'I agree. White people and conservatives need to stop it.
Clarence Thomas: Society is overly sensitive about race
As in:
Supreme Court Justices Attended Koch Event, Sparking Ethics Debate
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and this:
Should Clarence Thomas Recuse Himself ???
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http://depositfiles.com/files/l9s8k0khr