A month to go [until the U.S. presidential election] and I find myself skewered with something bigger than frustration. It begins with the false, dead enthusiasm I hear in Hillary’s attempts to rally her base, the tepid “USA! USA!” she invokes as she praises America’s generals and its wars and its moral righteousness. She and Trump are running for president on the same illusion, and there’s something seriously wrong with this.
It’s no accident that most of the focus this election season is on how bad the other candidate is. The rallying cry from both sides is: We have no choice. And I agree with those words, but attach a different meaning to them. We have no choice because we’re given no choice. We live in a permanent state of Democracy for Dummies: a complexity-free democracy, reduced to a game of winning and losing. The voters are spectators, not co-creators of the national future. No, the future is already predetermined, and it’s one of unquestioned military budgets and endless war.
– Robert C. Koehler
Excerpted from "The Politics of Fear"
Common Dreams
October 6, 2016
Excerpted from "The Politics of Fear"
Common Dreams
October 6, 2016
Related Off-site Links:
Outside RNC Headquarters, Millennials Declare: "It's Trump vs. All of Us" – Deirdre Fulton (Common Dreams, October 6, 2016).
I Don’t Like Hillary Clinton or the Democratic Party. I’m Voting for Them Anyway – Annabel Park (The Washington Post, October 6, 2016).
As Trump Brags About Tax Avoidance, New Sanders Bill Aims to Fix Rigged System – Andrea Germanos (Common Dreams, October 5, 2016).
UPDATES:
Sex, Lies and America’s Deplorable Democracy – Peter Bloom (Common Dreams, October 9, 2016).
Wikileaks E-mails Reveal Hillary Clinton's Presidential Strategy Which Included "Elevating" Trump in GOP – Tara West (TheInquistr.com, October 9, 2016).
Leaked E-mails Show That Trump Was a Tool Used By the Clinton Campaign From Day One – Brandon Morse (RedState.com, October 9, 2016).
Both Campaigns Enthusiastically Violate Ban on Super PAC Coordination, Watchdog Says – Jon Schwarz (The Intercept, October 7, 2016).
Needed Now: A Peace Movement Against the Clinton Wars to Come – Andrew Levine (CounterPunch, October 7, 2016).
Trump May Go Away, But the People He Has Empowered Will Not – Jeremy Scahill (The Intercept, October 9, 2016).
At Second Debate, a Monster Calls – Michael Winship (Common Dreams, October 11, 2016).
In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots – Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept, October 11, 2016).
Planned Attacks on Sanders Included in WikiLeaks' Third Batch of Podesta E-mails – Nika Knight (Common Dreams, October 11, 2016).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Carrying It On
• Progressive Perspectives on Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Hope, History, and Bernie Sanders
• Super Tuesday Thoughts on Bernie Sanders
• Quote of the Day – September 15, 2016
More false equivalence?
ReplyDeleteI'm under no illusion that one of the two leading candidates is worse than the other. But that shouldn't stop us from illuminating the fact that both are poor choices and that, as Robert C. Koehler points out, the political system in the U.S. is such that it all but guarantees such poor choices.
ReplyDeleteHillary Clinton is a standard U.S. politician and a good one.
ReplyDeleteGiven the environmental and economic crises we're facing, "standard," for an increasing number of people, is no longer desirable or adequate. The groundswell of support we saw around Bernie Sanders' campaign and the record level of unpopularity we're seeing for both Trump and Clinton bear witness to this reality. Many sense that humanity is at the threshold of a paradigm shift. I serious doubt that either Trump or Clinton are capable of being the leaders the U.S. and the world needs at this crucial time. For different reasons, neither are capable of embracing, embodying and thus helping to facilitate this shift. All that being said, Trump is far worse than Clinton.
ReplyDelete