General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What have Nader, Stein and the Green's accomplished, [View all]hunter
(38,310 posts)... patting themselves on the back, claiming they are somehow "saving" the world.
It's lipstick on a pig, just as solar panels on a 4,000 square foot house on some mini-ranch twenty miles from town with a 4wd flex-fuel "green" SUV in the driveway is lipstick on a pig.
If all the world's people lived as affluent U.S. Americans have, this world would already be dead.
This thing we call "economic productivity" is a direct measure of the damage we are doing to what's left of earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.
We ought to be paying people to experiment with lifestyles that have a very low environmental footprint. We ought to be figuring out how to shrink the economy without harming those already struggling to survive each day. We ought to be taxing the uber-wealthy out of existence.
Years ago I'd make myself unwelcome at the Sierra Club with similar arguments. If you are buying "green" automobiles and flying about the world, hiking the Himalayas and such, then you are part of the problem and it doesn't matter how much greenwash you apply.
I won't pretend, as an on-and-off-again affluent person, that I haven't used up far more than my fair share of the world's resources. I recognize my hypocrisy and I don't try to make up for my environmental trespasses with "green" bling. That would be no different than the Christian-with-the-fish-on-their-car who trespasses against others six days a week, behaving as if the slate is wiped clean at church every Sunday, Jesus forgiving them.
In spite of my personal political views, my voting is entirely practical. I was an enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton. I think a disturbing level of Bernie Sanders' support, and the election no-shows, arose from sexist people intimidated by strong women. Just as the "colorblind" all-lives-matter crowd is unable to acknowledge and examine their own racism, there's a women-are-equal crowd unable to examine their own sexism.
In any case, "consumer" activism is perfectly compatible with reasonable Republican or Libertarian ideology. It's good for business. The insurance industry approves of five mile-per-hour bumpers, steering shafts that don't impale drivers in accidents, seat belts, and airbags. The fact that today's Republican party is a sack full of grifters, racists, organized criminals, brain dead religious cultists, and rabid weasels doesn't change that.