academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressTulsi has got to be planning something with these moves. I think if she defected to the Republicans she might actually develop a larger following there. She is one of the few liberals that conservatives tend to respect.
Categories: Electoralism/Democratism
 | Anonymous on The Lesser of Two Evils is a D… |
 | academiccompositiona… on The American Tower of Babel: H… |
 | Richard Cheimison on Opposing The Empire Means Wide… |
| Richard Cheimison on Public Choice Theory and the I… |
| Richard Cheimison on America’s classless utop… |
| Richard Cheimison on A World Without Money, Interes… |
 | curri on The American Tower of Babel: H… |
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson
Back before Trump started causing some Republicans to pretend they’re anti-war, Gabbard was “Republican hawks’ favorite Democrat.” Then Trump showed her that kinda-sorta, but-not-really, OK-maybe-a-little-bit antiwar (sometimes) was a great differentiator (and a good fundraising niche to start transitioning away from relying on Indian nationalists for all her campaign money), so she rolled with that.
What will she do next? Who knows? It all depends on what she thinks will benefit her. The rest is just theatrics.
She seems to be a fairly polarizing figure. Virtually everyone I know who is into politics either loves her or hates her. Kind of like Trump, I guess. When she was running, I had the same view of her that I did of Ron Paul back in 2008 and 2012. It’s interesting to have someone with at least a nominally “antiwar” message running for a major party, but electing an “antiwar” prez really isn’t a viable idea. “War” is the main reason the federal government exists in the first place. Any prez that seriously moved against the empire’s interests would be Nixoned, JFK’d, or Allende’d. Look how much grief they gave Trump, and he’s largely followed the standard Republican playbook the whole time.
Americans don’t care about any kind of “antiwar” message, except for a tiny, tiny minority. The antiwar vote is probably the smallest voting block there is. It would probably be more strategically advantageous for a politician to pander to vegans than to pacifists or anti-imperialists. The empire is going to have to be defeated on the battlefield (which is happening) or under its own weight through overextension (which is also happening). Right now, it looks like the empire is trying to outsource a lot of its functions in order to save itself (e.g. outsourcing the Syrian war to Turkey, the war on the Resistance Axis to the Israeli-Sunni alliance, possibly the wars in Africa to the Saudi axis as well).
“Americans don’t care about any kind of ‘antiwar’ message, except for a tiny, tiny minority.”
True. But that tiny, tiny minority reliably writes checks to the few candidates who cater to it. They can’t win presidential elections, but they can plow that money into congressional campaigns that win by being fairly standard at the constituent level while talking radical to the donors, or into higher-profile losing presidential campaigns that set them up for lucrative post-Congress careers selling within that same niche.
That was Ron Paul’s schtick. It was Bernie Sanders’s schtick too, but he actually managed to parlay it into something bigger politically. And it seems to be Gabbard’s schtick.
It’s for reasons of those kinds that I think electoral politics is best avoided, except perhaps for purely propagandistic or entertainment purposes.
I tend to agree. I went completely non-electoral-politics for a few years earlier in this century, but came back to the Libertarian Party because I’m a junkie, because I have so many friends there, and because it has some “bully pulpit” aspects for affecting the collective conversation. I’m not especially optimistic about the LP winning at a high level, or about achieving big changes by doing so.
Oh, so is dictatorship, monarchy, serfdom more to your liking? You just don’t want people you feel are below you making important decisions.
Nah. It’s more a matter of just not having any regard for governments generally.