The real scam & the scammers - Rev. J.T. Smith

Recently, I've come across two opinion pieces included in the daily AlterNet Top Stories  newsletter in my email that I'm subscribed to. The author of the pieces, John Stoehr, is of the opinion that third party Presidential candidates are all scammers because all third parties are a scam.

He didn't drink the Kool-aid.  Clearly, he guzzled and gargled with it.  He also assumes the only people who are attracted to third party candidates are those who solely vote during Presidential elections and take no other particular part in politics.  He claims those third parties are full of false promises, are in a sense demagogic, and are anti-democratic as a result.

Strange.  Every year, I see a smattering of third party candidates for positions up and down the ballot.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that Bernie Sanders is not only currently a United States Senator representing Vermont, but he is also an Independent.  Strange.  (Obviously Sanders switched to the Democratic party from 2015 - 2016 and 2019 - 2020 in his run to be President, but the fact remains that he is now, once again, an Independent.  See my previous entries about his running as a Democrat.)

As a matter of fact, there are currently four Independent Senators: Bernie Sanders (VT) (2007 - present); Angus S. King Jr (ME) (2013 - present); Kyrsten Sienna (AZ) (2013 - present); and Joe Manchin  III (WV) (2013 - present).  And they are not the only Senators in American history that belonged to "Third or Minor Parties."  While there are no members of the House Of Representatives belonging to third or minor parties as of the writing of entry, there have still been many examples throughout American history.  To be fair, not all of those third and minority party members were originally elected as a third or minor party member.  Some changed parties and were still reelected, and some like Bernie Sanders were elected as a member of a third or minor party member.  And those examples are strictly referring to the federal government.  There are still more throughout state and local governments as well.

So while third party candidates are rare enough masse in American politics, they can and do still win.  And in winning they adjust the course of politics.

As I have noted previously, the corporate duopoly of American politics is the problem.  Alright,  technically it is a problem.  The two bigger problems which combine with the corporate duopoly are the real overall problem.  What are the two bigger problems?

First is the Electoral College.  I've already spoken about that travesty in previous entries.  The other relates to Duverger's law in political science.  America is a political system with single member districts, which means each district is represented by a single officeholder.  In contrast, systems with proportional representation usually have more representatives of minor parties in government.

Considering that America started with zero political parties, which George Washington would refer to factions and in fact Washington was strongly against because he felt that unity rather than division was necessary for a democratic republic to survive.

Ultimately the only reason third parties have yet to break through that wall is because enough people buy the lie that the only viable parties are the corporate duopoly, and fools like John Stoehr who think that we must do everything to make changes while maintaining that duopoly.

My father was a member of the Libertarian party.  His father wanted to name him Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but didn't know how to spell Delano.  My father, for reasons I neither understood nor really discussed with him, hated Roosevelt.  That was my personal introduction to politics aside from what was loosely taught in school.  Frankly I had no interest as it all stank of bovine defacation and held less than no interest in it for me.  Especially considering the President is not elected by the majority of Americans due to the Electoral College.

In November 2000, I wasn't registered to vote.  My personal take was that my vote doesn't count, and I pointed to the Presidential election as the prime reason for concluding that.  For clarification, in 2000 I was residing in Pennsylvania, a state that Al Gore, whom I would have voted for had I been registered to vote, won handily even without my vote.  Not only did Gore win Pennsylvania, he also won the Popular Vote.  We all know how that played out.

My first actual real involvement of any political kind was to add my voice to the chorus who stood against AT&T's intended buyout of T-Mobile as I was and am a T-Mobile customer and I don't want to be ripped off any more than I have to be.  And AT&T wants to charge me more for the same services I currently pay less for with T-Mobile.  I made calls and wrote letters to my local/federal government and signed every petition I could find to end that "merger".  When I learned the part those calls, letters, and petitions ultimately played , I started signing petitions and writing letters to elected officials involving the environment, ending the death penalty, government issues, and far more.  Feel free to check out my Pinterest page for a better understanding of where I stand.

I didn't get properly involved in "local politics" (which is how I see all human politics regardless of nationality) until 2012 when I registered to vote for the first time and I voted for Barack Obama because I saw the Mitt Romney's vision regarding women as a direct threat to all of my female friends, and who make up the majority of my friends.

While I have no interest nor intention of running for political office myself, my political activities haven't slowed.  Frankly, I loathe politics in general.  Unfortunately, I have to get involved to try to make change. 

As of January this year, the number of registered independent voters surpassed the number of registered Democrats and Republican voters.  Frankly, take that as a good sign. 

On a personal note, while I am registered as an independent, and with the exception of the times I briefly changed to Democrat simply to vote for Bernie Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 primaries, and while I lean Democrat, I more closely align with the Green Party and the Working Families Party.  And for over a year now the Green Party is an official party that you can register to vote as in the state that I currently live in.

The movement to eliminate the Electoral College is growing.  Fighting the corporate stranglehold on American politics is ongoing.  If history teaches us anything, it is it can be done. Hopefully without a relative replay of the French Revolution.  Eliminating those will definitely help to allow third parties to be able to end the duopoly.  As will getting people to wake up to the fact that people should vote their conscience even when it's a third party candidate that most aligns with your conscience.

Voting for third parties is not a scam.  The scam is believing the only viable options are sticking with the corporate duopoly.

 

- Rev. J.T. Smith

 

 

Here We Go Again With Not Voting For X Is A Vote For Y - Rev. J.T. Smith

 

Every four years America is treated to the Presidential election when Americans are directed to vote for one of two wealthy (anymore it's more like obscenely wealthy) candidates to run the country.  And for many decades now, American politics has been subsumed by a corporate duopoly divided between the Democrats and Republicans.  That duopoly has literally become its own industry that claims to cares about its customers (you guessed it: us) but in practice only serves to enrich itself.  And for free advertising, bring in major media outlets that drown out every other potential candidate.  Just look what happened to Bernie Sanders in 2016.

I've been hearing the trope about voting for a third party for decades now, about how it's a thrown away vote, or it's a vote for such-and-such candidate, etc.  I am NOT a fan of Trump by any means, so I will not vote for him.

The reality is that America desperately needs to break free of the corporate duopoly of the two-party system; but, as long as people continue to buy into the fallacy that it is the only viable system, which is a lie that you've been spoon-fed since you were in grade school and fed to you by the corporate "elites" who effectively control both parties with their extremely deep pockets, as long as Americans buy that lie, and as long as the Electoral College is allowed to remain in place, then America is screwed by it.

The only ways that I'm aware of to break that cycle is: 1) Permanently end the Electoral College; and 2) to finally vote for someone else, someone who is not so beholden to American corporatocracy, for enough people to both be registered to vote (finally starting to see some small movement on that, albeit infinitesimal) and for them to stop automatically simply voting for only either Democrats or Republicans.  That Senator Bernie Sanders held that office as an Independent for as long as he has is an indicator it can be done.

Eliminating the Electoral College is not impossible.  For things to do to achieve this, there are many avenues.  There are a plethora of petitions dedicated to this.  Sign all of them.  You can even start your own if you're so inclined.  You can also contact your government representatives, both state and federal.  You have the right, utilize it.  Write to and call your Representative and Senators.  And not just once and done, but repeatedly.  Don't let them ignore you.  To magnify your voice, also join or start a local group for this purpose.  For perspective, "gun rights" adherents and groups are calling in nearly daily.  It's one of the reasons Congress has failed so miserably to actually do anything particularly to curb gun violence  in America.  You can do the same.  As always, be polite or you'll be working against yourself.

Frankly I still think that if he had run as an independent in 2016 rather than falling into the trap of running as a Democrat against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, then we might finally have seen a solid crack in the system.  Especially considering Sanders was bringing in more small money donations and larger turnouts at his campaign rallies than Clinton and Trump combined.  But he was a clear and present danger to the established order which is why, since he was running as a Democrat, the Democratic Party was able to quash him and hand the nomination to Clinton.  Frankly, I could never vote for her as she never met a war she didn't like.

Until that break from the corporate duopoly happens, every cycle there will be people screaming that a vote for someone other than the corporate chosen candidate is a vote for the other corporate chosen candidate.

Want to keep Trump out of office?  Then do everything you can to make certain that the protections of the 14th Amendment are enforced, and throw his arse in prison where it likely belongs. 

Impossible is for the lazy.  Nothing is impossible if people start thinking rather than merely reacting.  It takes a lot of hard work and time invested.  As a hemorrhagic stroke survivor who's ambulatory again (after being completely paralyzed from the neck down on my dominant side, I'm not fully recovered YET), I am here to tell you impossible is for the lazy.   According to the laws of aerodynamics it's impossible for a bumblebee to fly.  Screw impossible and just DO it.

- Rev. J.T. Smith

 

Bernie Sanders Just Stabbed Us In The Back And Screwed Us As A Result - Rev. J.T. Smith

Bernie Sanders had been running a campaign that fought for We The People over the wealthy and corporations, that was consistently against the forever wars, and recognized how much the inequality in America has hurt us all.

#NotMeUs.  Ha!  Us are boned now, thank you very much.

Sanders and Warren were the ONLY  true Progressive candidates to run.  My hope had been that Warren and Bernie would run together.

Now?

Bernie has bowed out of the run for the nomination.  He says he'll keep fighting the fight, but he just gave up his best potential avenue to fight for us: As the President.

If you believe that the only viable political parties are Democrats and Republicans, the Bernie has just screwed us!  Our options are a bigot Republican and a bigot corporate Democrat.  I seriously do not see a whole lot of difference here.  While I grant that Biden is somewhat saner than Trump. the end result is still the same: The wealthy are still going to be in charge and the wars are going to keep on going until a real leader steps up and is put in office!

I had believed that leader to be Bernie Sanders.  Clearly, I was in error.

Gee, thanks, Bernie! 

by Rev. J.T. Smith

Hillary Clinton Did NOT Lose Because Democrats/Progressives Did Not Turn Out To Vote - Rev. J.T. Smith

First, full disclosure: I am not a registered Democrat.  Except for during the Primaries leading up to the 2016 Presidential Election when I officially changed parties to vote for Bernie Sanders, I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat.  I am registered as independent.  I grant that I lean far more Democrat in general, but that's not the same thing.

And after the way the DNC treated Sanders from the beginning, from trying too keep him from getting any real press coverage even after he was clearly polling higher than she was against Trump to trying to claim he wasn't vetted against Trump even though Sanders withstood more directed attacks than Clinton and still managed to stay on the actual issues while calmly and cogently explaining things like socialism, I never will be a Democrat.

I do not hate Hillary Clinton nor do I think she's an idiot nor some version of the Antichrist.  I never have.  As noted in a prior posting, I simply cannot vote for her.  That doesn't change the number of people that did vote for her.  And if you buy into the (erroneous) notion that there's only two viable political parties, then Hillary Clinton makes a FAR saner choice than Trump.  And the fact is that nearly 3 Million more people agree that Clinton was the better choice than those who supported Trump.

Now, I don't know if it's the actual upper echelons of the Democratic party or simply the supporting arms like the National Democratic Training Committee and PACs like the Progressive Turnout Project and Democracy for America that honestly believe the entire problem was that not enough Democrats voted in the 2016 election and that was why Clinton lost.  What I do know is that if any of them or even any of the common Democrats honestly believe that then they're blind and stupid.  Again, the fact is that nearly 3 Million more people agree that Clinton was the better choice than those who supported Trump.

But I keep getting emails with petitions (for causes that I support from things like the environment to getting Representatives and Senators to block Trump's appalling nominations to offices with real political power) that when you sign the petitions you're asked (pestered more like) to fill out a survey.  Not only are the surveys realistically useless due to the questions having thoroughly leading answer choices, for example from the Progressive Turnout Project:

Official Research Poll

Did you vote for Donald J. Trump?

NO! Absolutely not. Yes, I did vote for Trump. I did not vote. 

They then follow up with another survey that both contains (usually though not always at the beginning) and reinforces the assertion of the erroneous assumption that turnout was the whole problem.

When 2.8 million more people vote for the candidate and that candidate still loses to Hitler mk II . . . er, a pathetic windbag like Trump, turnout is not so much the problem.  Or at least, it's only a small part of the much larger problem.

Then there's the media, like this article from the National Memo, that also completely misses the problem that allowed Trump to "win."

When you look back at the lead up to the election, the lion's share of the television adverts were for Hillary Clinton.  Trump aired almost no adverts until the weekend before election day, just as he had done during the primaries.  Considering the relative saturation levels, people would have been jaded on Clinton's adverts (including their overall lack of talk of the issues like the economy and her strengths in relation to those issues and focusing solely on Trump's numerous personal failings while ignoring all of his business failings or demonstrating clearly just how he's a con artist), which only allowed Trump's message of misinformation to resonate even louder.  For all the harm the Citizen's United decision caused, it was Hillary's massive fundraising compared to Trump's stingy spending that hurt her.  Still, while a facet of the problem, it's not the problem when you remember that Hillary dominated the popular vote by 2.8 Million more votes than the Great Pumpkin . . ., er, Trump.

Considering that she got that many more votes overall, getting the people out to vote wasn't quite the problem.  Though if you want to get more people out to vote, how about we end gerrymandering entirely as well as things like voter ID laws and other related barriers to voting.  It's also rather telling how the GOP relies so much on those barriers instead of actually trying to win elections on the merits of their ideas.

No, there are two basic general reasons Hillary lost.  The first is that within the Electoral College, Hillary lacked the votes of the whites in the Rust Belt.  She forgot in her wealth that the economy matters, and the con man focused on the economy.  That he did so with lies and misinformation is irrelevant when she ignores the economy so thoroughly.  That's only if you think the Electoral College does anything remotely useful.

The biggest problem, even if all those other barriers are legally and constitutionally eliminated, is the Electoral College.  The Electoral College has allowed the election to be stripped and flipped six times (in 1800, 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016) relieving the public will of their choice of leader.

That is the main problem, the reason Hillary Clinton lost the election.  Science matters, but so does history.  “'History,' it has been said, 'does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.'” - Max Beerbohm.

Now if we can just wake the corporate media up to these facts and shine a light on them.  Then we need to break the notion that there are only two viable political parties.

First, we need to find a way to get corporate media's collective lips off of and their collective heads out of Trump's ass, though that may prove far more difficult than getting them to wake up and actually do their jobs of keeping the entirety of government honest.

by Rev. J.T. Smith

It's Neither A Spoiler Nor A Protest Vote! - Rev. J.T. Smith

For a long time now, the Democratic and Republican parties have effectively controlled American politics between them while blocking out any other parties from truly participating.  And thanks to the cozy nature of the relationships between those two parties and the media, the American public has been told ad nauseum that a vote for any other party's candidate would be waste of a vote.  As a result, people accept this blindly without realizing that the status quo can and will change if enough people say: ''No more!''

Let me be clear, the only way I could vote for Trump is following my lobotomy from the neck up.  And while Clinton is clearly and obviously a better choice, I still cannot in good conscience vote for her.  It's not because of her gender as I am a feminist, nor is it for any of the ridiculous reasons the GOP have been throwing out ever since she was the First Lady.

I have three major problems with Clinton.  First, environmental: She still supports fracking even though it's destroying our potable water and further exacerbating climate change.  Second, financial: Her past and present ties with Wall St., between all those speaking fees and that so much of her campaign contributions come from Wall St., she's not likely to truly bite the hand that's fed her so well and for so long; not to the extent that she needs to for real reforms to start happening.  Third, war: As with her vote to invade Iraq, so it is with her approach to Syria.  Her pushing for military intervention has helped to create the Syrian refugee crisis.  More war does not end nor prevent a war!

For those reasons, and since the Democratic Party conspired to block Bernie Sanders at every turn and make certain he wasn't on the ballot, I voted for Jill Stein.  Regardless, we all need to stop buying into the notion that there are only two parties and maybe we can finally get the change we called so loudly for during the Primaries.  The Founding Fathers were in fact against the concept of political parties. 

Let me clarify one more thing, my reference to the media is about far more than Hillary Clinton.  My reference to the media is in regards to how we've been hearing for decades that voting for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote.  Let's face it, the media is owned by the elites, and the elites are the ones who try to give us only two candidates between two parties every election cycle.  The media has been burying all the various third-parties, and the media has control of the vetted information.  Examples: "Mainstream media ignore third-party Senate challengers", "These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America", "Media Deception: You Are Not Getting The Truth", and "10 Brilliant Quotes by Noam Chomsky on How Media Really Operates in America".  The dual party system as a whole has been sold to you.  Frankly, you do better to stay well clear of American corporate media for your important information.

- Rev. J.T. Smith