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TalkingDog

(9,001 posts)
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 11:59 PM Mar 2016

It’s OK to reject the choice of a tyrannical liberal or a right-wing tyrant

Some of us just want to watch the world Bern.

Vote for Hillary, be a sucker: It’s OK to reject the choice of a tyrannical liberal or a right-wing tyrant
“Vote for Hillary or be responsible for Trump” is slogan of someone maintaining -- or being played -- by the system

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/06/vote_for_hillary_be_a_sucker_its_ok_to_reject_the_choice_of_a_tyrannical_liberal_or_a_right_wing_tyrant/

I dislike voting as a model of political engagement, especially in a corrupt and constrained system that devalues grassroots organizing and tries to limit our imagination to mechanical support of stage-managed icons. Yet I accept that people find inspiration in public figures and express approval by casting votes, sometimes the only political commodity available to a disempowered public. We can critique U.S. elections without being contemptuous of their participants.

Most election skeptics actually value (and perhaps overvalue) their votes. Pundits who insist on voting as a precondition of respectability exhibit contempt for anybody who rejects the mythologies of U.S. exceptionalism. To be respectable, one mustn’t simply vote. One must vote correctly. Such entreaties preclude third-party candidates or acts of conscience deemed inadequately practical. We remain confined to a political canon that produced the greatest crisis of inequality in world history.

snip

The argument is a classic form of liberal discipline meant to shame the recalcitrant into obedience. It confers responsibility for national travails onto those who choose different ways of political consumption and participation. It’s a good example of why many thoughtful people renounce the electoral system. When a complex project like democracy is limited to two airbrushed party bureaucrats, venal strategies of coercion are inevitable.

This brand of disciplining rose to prominence during Ralph Nader’s candidacy in 2000 and is dutifully repeated by waspish blowhards every four years. While reasonable people understand that debate will arise over voting strategies, there is little consideration of the merits of voting third party or not voting at all, which, contrary to neoliberal orthodoxy, can certainly be an affirmational act of participation. When folks with loud voices and large audiences assign blame for the terrible state of U.S. governance on people who make ethical decisions to avoid cosigning injustice, we’re no longer dealing with reason but with numbingly inane superstition.
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It’s OK to reject the choice of a tyrannical liberal or a right-wing tyrant (Original Post) TalkingDog Mar 2016 OP
Only 120 views? TalkingDog Mar 2016 #1
Preach. VulgarPoet Mar 2016 #2
Feelin' it brother. TalkingDog Mar 2016 #4
I wholeheartedly believe in fire. VulgarPoet Mar 2016 #5
Been doing that for 40 years. I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse. TalkingDog Mar 2016 #6
This piece is the best thing I have read this morning so far! m-lekktor Mar 2016 #3
Tyrannical liberal=oxymoron, Is this from the JBS? Todays_Illusion Mar 2016 #7
Nah, some egghead intellectual TalkingDog Mar 2016 #8
I think calling an ideologue an intellectul is like calling a sloth a racehorse. Todays_Illusion Mar 2016 #9
Telling people they can choose what they want to do does not fall under ideology TalkingDog Mar 2016 #10

VulgarPoet

(2,872 posts)
2. Preach.
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 10:55 AM
Mar 2016

Only reason this has as few views as it does is for reasons that will doubtlessly earn me a hide if mentioned. I leave that to your no doubt talented imagination.

TalkingDog

(9,001 posts)
4. Feelin' it brother.
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 11:46 AM
Mar 2016

It's a delicate subject, but one that needs to be (carefully) discussed.

Does one take the frying pan over the fire if it might help to speed up the deconstruction of a system that is already crumbling at both ends?

And is there another way to speed the process up? Or can we truly have the best of everything and subvert the system by participating in it?

VulgarPoet

(2,872 posts)
5. I wholeheartedly believe in fire.
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 11:49 AM
Mar 2016

But we are obligated to at least attempted, wholeheartedly within the confines of the system before going full steam.

TalkingDog

(9,001 posts)
6. Been doing that for 40 years. I'm pretty sure it's gotten worse.
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 12:58 PM
Mar 2016

So, I'll vote. But it'll will probably be a write-in candidate if I don't feel I can ethically vote for evil. Even it's the "lesser of" version.

m-lekktor

(3,675 posts)
3. This piece is the best thing I have read this morning so far!
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 11:07 AM
Mar 2016

I can understand why there are not many comments yet considering most of DU does exactly what this article mentions.

TalkingDog

(9,001 posts)
8. Nah, some egghead intellectual
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 01:15 PM
Mar 2016

Who gets paid to think about things critically and deeply.

Steven Salaita currently holds the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut.

TalkingDog

(9,001 posts)
10. Telling people they can choose what they want to do does not fall under ideology
Thu Mar 10, 2016, 02:31 PM
Mar 2016

Well, okay, it does if you are adamant about it.

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