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Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Brief Republican Vote Suppression Edition
Posted by Jill | 6:01 AM
Brad Friedman on the unverified "mystery software patch" installed in 39 counties in Ohio, and the last-minute lawsuit hoping to stop it.

Digby: Disenfranchisement is a feature, not a bug.

Charlie Pierce on Sandy's secondary disaster.

No surprise here: So-called "True the Vote" forged signatures on their applications to be election observers in Ohio.

SemDem at DKos: Rick Scott is in a class by himself. All he's missing is the dogs and firehoses.

TBogg. 'nuff said.

You know, my good friend and blogbuddy jurassicpork and I disagree o what to do today. JP lives in Massachusetts, so he has the luxury of a protest vote. I disagree that a vote for a Green Party candidate, even as good a candidate as Jill Stein, will send a message to the Democratic Party. If Ralph Nader 2000 didn't send a message, nothing will. Third parties have to start at the local level and work their way up, not the other way around. I respect JP's decision and even agree with his reasons, even though I disagree with it. I disagree with it if for no other reason than I look at all the young women in this country and I see America's future -- a future that a bunch of grey-faced men want to take away from them, regarding them as little more than vessels -- incubators for producing enough white people to keep people like Willard Rmoney in power forever. If you think there's no difference between the two candidates on drones, or war, or banks, or multinational corporations, fine. But in my view, a protest vote in a state that could swing either way does nothing for those being murdered overseas, but does consign the next generations of American women to less-than-human status.

And the last word (heh) on the stakes today comes from, of all people, Tweety:



Yeah. What he said.

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9 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Shows where JP's head is at right now. He's certainly not casting his ballot while thinking of the welfare of the women in his life. Selfish.
11/6/12, 7:42 AM  
Blogger jurassicpork said...
Well, Jill, what you seem to be saying is that I should vote against my conscience, my morals and ethics, against my very basic humanity to vote for a guy for whom I didn't want to vote 4 years ago because I saw through him then.

I held my nose voting for Obama and was dismayed that I found myself in the same exact position I was in four years before that: Voting not for Democrat but against the Republican that scared me more.

There comes a time in every conscientious person's life when you have to stop staggering to the beat of 60,000,000 other drums and start saving the country's soul by saving your own. And why in God's name would a conscientious person such as myself want to help re-elect a guy I'd sooner see executed for war crimes charges?

To say nothing of maintaining the corrupt status quo at the least, escalating the destruction of the US Constitution at worst when there are more morally viable candidates out there, people who haven't sold their soul to Goldman Sachs and the rest of the Bilderbergers?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, even if I lived in a swing state, I'd STILL vote for someone else, in this case, Jailbird Jill. I will not vote for a child killer who, maddeningly, won a Nobel Peace Prize for which he was nominated after just a week and a half in office and, during his acceptance speech in Oslo, actually defended going to war against a country that never threatened us, a nation that, historically, has never been conquered.

It boggles the mind that human beings can be so deluded, ignorant and ruled by fear as to vote for a man such as Obama. But if I voted for him again, or voted against Romney by voting for him, I'd never be able to look myself in the mirror again and, in the end, that's what counts for me: Saving my soul doing doing what I believe in my heart of hearts is the right thing to do.

We can and some day will send a more powerful message than Nader did in 2000. It all starts with voting for parties other than the two corrupt monolithic parties that we're told every four years is the only choice we have. That is patently false. We do not live in a two party system.

And this country will never be able to break free of the shackles of political corruption until we stop voting out of fear and voting, instead, out of a sincere belief that our candidate of choice actually wants to do something rather than be something.

And when Obama approves that XL Pipeline after the election, a decision that he bravely punted until after 2012, when he further expands the government's powers to detain, charge and even kill us as he's done these last four years, when he kills more civilians in parts of the world where we don't belong, when he continues coddling corporations, you'll see I was right back in '12 and I can't promise I'll be too big not to point my finger at you all and laugh and say, "I told you so!"
11/6/12, 9:09 AM  
Anonymous KanaW said...
Thanks, Jill.
11/6/12, 11:44 AM  
Anonymous CC said...
Nader didn't cost Gore the election in 2000. Gore cost Gore that election. Do you remember how many times he and Dubya agreed with each other during their debates?

It's not just a bunch of grey-faced men who are gunning for a Romney victory. Quite a few women have no problem with the Republicans waging war on them.

Why doesn't Jill take a chance to vote her conscience and pull the lever for a third party candidate? Obama is expected to win NJ easily - perhaps even more so in the wake of Sandy. Even if Governor Christie isn't going to vote for Obama, his praise for Obama's disaster relief efforts might have convinced a few fence-sitters to go Dem.
11/6/12, 12:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Come on, add "racism" to the tags...and make it complete. Cause that IS what a lot of the shrill screaming is actually about.
11/6/12, 1:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Jurassic.... I feel your pain, I do. But, do you not think all the things with which you indict Obama would be doubly problematic with Romney at the helm?

I HATE it being the lesser of two evils instead of the better of two goods; but that IS the age we live in....a robotic President devoid of any guilt over bald-faced lies so offends me that I quite happily voted for Obama.
11/6/12, 1:30 PM  
Blogger pbriggsiam said...
Jurrasicport,

It doesn't start with voting for parties other than the 2 we have. It starts with building a proper movement that establishes a viable means for 3rd Party candidates to get elected.

Voting your conscience doesn't do much if you don't follow up with actually making it a reality. Get to work on it if you believe in it. Your fellow liberals who live in the real political world would respect you much more if you did.

By the way, other than your voting stance, I love your blog posts. Very valuable stuff.
11/6/12, 4:09 PM  
Blogger Publisher said...
I have to comment of the "come from, of all people, Tweety" line. Tweety has been really good for the last few months; really deeply outraged by the racist and bigoted attacks. And if you caught him this morning, after O's acceptance speech, his criticism of the speech and of O's failure to effectively embrace leadership of his party was dead on!
11/7/12, 2:24 AM  
Blogger jurassicpork said...
Well, guys, I voted my conscience and went with Stein and, trust me, I can live much more easily with myself than if I'd voted for Bush-lite. I do m=not apologize for it and I refuse to support that corporate fuckstick Obama and to maintain this stupendously corrupt status quo more than I already have.

As for the first anonymous clown who was frist to weigh in, what the hell is that crack supposed to mean? The "women" in my life numbers exactly one and if I couldn't trust Jill Stein with her welfare, then I guess I can't trust anyone.
11/7/12, 11:01 PM  
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