...No One Wins:
Another Concise Depiction of The Obvious
…and What You Need To Know To Talk To Progressives and Defeat Fascism
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There’s a global worker’s movement for a green just economy on the rise. And, there is no other plan in sight. 98% of climate scientists all over the world, paid from different sources, in different countries, all agree that we have ten years to reduce our admissions in order to have a 60% chance of survival. They are not alarmist. They are the opposite. Climate change is happening faster than they’ve predicted. We do not have more time, but possibly less. We cannot afford another four years of climate denial. Conservatives like to insinuate that we are cowards or fools for believing in science, while they were shaking in their boots over the Fox fabrication of a War on Christmas. Now, they have QAnon on the brain, and they are completely lost. But, we don’t have time to be cynical, or the luxury of apathy.
Ever since Bill Clinton turned his back on workers, Progressives have been leaving the Democratic Party. It’s a very understandable cathartic response, yet ultimately, a losing strategy. It only accomplishes one thing, handing power over to the Right, as in, Corporate Democrats in the Primary and fascists in the General. When the Left drops out, the Right takes over. Although, since 2018, Progressives have been taking over the party. This will be crushed under fascism. The problem is not #LesserEvilVoting, because the trend, before this, has been the exact opposite. Disengagement has been the trend on the Left for decades, long before #DemEXIT. Many on the left feel like they can’t vote for Biden because he’s on the Right. The toxic attitudes of “centrist”corporate-Democrat voters and the Party’s corporatist agenda, has fractured the party, and Progressives on the Left. What the Left needs to learn, is the concept of coalition building. Anyone who thought Hillary was more electable than Bernie, was severely misinformed, at best. Corporate Democrats are often wrong about pretty much everything except for their understanding that Trump & Republicans are worse than Democrats. Years before an election, we can talk about 3rd Parties, but months, weeks, & days before an election, isn’t serious at all. There’s only one serious strategy, days & weeks before an election, and that is to vote for the best candidate who has a decent chance. In the Primary, that was Bernie. Now it’s Biden.
Both corporate parties can appear to be the same, as long as you can overlook the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and the fascist leadership of the Republican Party. The best way to beat the Corporate Democrats, is to stay registered, and vote them out. #BrandNewCongress [+] #ExpandTheSquad
Trump's fascist rhetoric rally's his base. Remember when he campaigned on building a wall, blamed everything on immigrants, minorities, and poor people? Remember when he kidnapped innocent children, put them in concentration camps at the boarder, destroying families forever? Remember the militarization of the police and borders? …the violence against the Left, against dissent, and the brutality toward peaceful protesters? Remember the hatred towards anti-fascists? …the kidnapping of innocent people on the streets into unmarked vehicles? Remember, forced sterilization? Remember how Uniting The Right ended in death? Notice how all of this not only refers to Trump, but also Hitler. Can you see fascism yet? We have seen from the extensive footage, that practically all of the violence at protests comes from alt-right agitators and out-of-control incompetent cops. We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. We imprison more people than any other country. We need to defund the bloated violent incompetent police state, and reallocate those funds.
The Right almost always punches down to worship the rich. They only make exceptions to this, if the elite or authority in question are pro-equality / anti-authoritarian. The Right is not about individualism. It is thinly veiled authoritarianism. They can’t question the military or police state. They can’t question any U.S. war, because they can’t think around or outside of the propaganda slogan, “Support the Troops.” It’s very effective at stopping conservatives from questioning any U.S. policy of war. Their selfish slogan is “America First,” which amounts to American hegemony, war mongering, and increased violence around the world. The Right cannot improve America, because they support all of the worst ideas ever devised, from torture, pollution, preeminent strikes, to bigotry and endless inequality.
For decades, capitalists have tried to claim that collectivism equals authoritarianism, but that’s just another right wing lie. Using Venezuela as an example of socialism is as disingenuous as using Saudi Arabia as the quintessential example of capitalism. So then, what do Bernie Sanders and progressives mean by socialism? This is easy. We mean, the very policies that gave us the greatest economy we ever had: USA 1945 - 1975, and the most stable economies in the world today, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, etc… You got it, the corporate media has a corporate bias (i.e., a right wing bias), as usual, just the opposite of what Fox has been telling you. They’ve got all of the lies backwards.
When Trump incites violence at his rallies, the crowd cheers. We all hear them loud and clear. On the contrary, when you listen to the Left, say a Bernie rally for instance, you hear the crowd cheer for peace, equality, solidarity, and to fight for a just world. When Bernie supporters first started chanting Bernie, he stopped them, and said, it’s not me, it’s us! And, hence his slogan became, “Not Me, Us” which is quite a contrast to the selfishness of Trumpista’s, Me First sentiment. Remember when Trump said, he’s the only one that matters. This is a theme for them. Bush was the decider. They both expressed their love of dictatorship. They’re spelling it out for us, and conservatives love it. The one thing that the Trump administration has done, is that it has removed all doubt around and concerning illegitimacy and sickness of right wing ideology. Individualism on the Right merely represents excuses for selfishness and greed.
Trump supporters are murdering innocent people in the streets, and still they try to blame peaceful protesters. Trump incites violence at all of his rallies, and his supporters cheer and comply. Just remember their lies and outrage over the most peaceful protests in the history of protests, kneeling before the flag during the anthem. No matter how many times they were told it’s about police brutality, they responded with lies saying it’s about the flag or the troops. With that level of outrage over the most peaceful protests imaginable, of course they’ll lose it over street demonstrations. We’ve seen them ram cars and trucks into crowds, violently infiltrate protests, storm public buildings with military grade weapons, and cry about wearing a mask during a pandemic. If you think the conservatives are the peaceful ones, you haven’t been paying attention.
There’s enough footage of the protests to make an estimate that over 90% wore masks. There’s also enough footage and reporting to show that it was actually right wing agitators and out-of-control incompetent cops committing all of the violence. People who believe in peace and equality and risk their lives to stand up for people they don’t know and have never met, are not the violent ones. Protests against police brutality are always met with police brutality, unless you're peacefully kneeling before the flag during the anthem. Then, they just lie, and say it's about something else. The BLM demonstrations are no exception. The establishment media tends to side with the corporate establishment, not civil disobedience.
Trump ran to the left of Hillary, now he’s trying to run to the left of Biden. If Biden lets him do that, we’ll probably lose again. Bill Clinton ran as an economic conservative and only won because Ross Perot divided the vote on the right. Obama won because he campaigned as a progressive. Unfortunately, he governed as a Republican and continued to disaffect the working class, which is how we got to Trump. The most popular programs are Social Security and Medicare. The most popular president in our history, is the one who taxed the rich. …FDR, of course. He was elected four times until he died. I know, Republicans used to be more progressive than Democrats on social issues, but that all change after the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s, and Nixon’s Southern Strategy. But then, since Reagan, both parties have moved to the far right on the economy, with Democrats usually managing to be a little better. If Obama implemented Medicare For All, instead of Mitt Romney’s Republican corporate healthcare plan, Democrats would be loved so much Republicans could never win again. Obama also extended the Bush Tax Cuts, deported more immigrants than Bush, escalated the war in Afghanistan, increased U.S. drone attacks, and renewed the Patriot Act. He was elected to do the opposite. Now, do you understand why progressives left the party? Republicans speak to, and rally their base, while Democrats malign their base, and then wonder why they lose. We have to face the truth to win. Only the Right is fueled by lies. We have to beat Trump, and then we have to primary all of the corporate Democrats. This is the only plan the left is coalescing around. It’s the only plan, which speaks to the non-voting majority, and if we don’t come together on this, we very well could be looking at an ever increasingly unstable spiraling descension towards our own extinction.
Remember, FDR was not progressive, he was pushed by socialists, communists, and unions to implement the socialists policies that gave us the best economy we ever had. It wasn’t enough. It left room for the Robber Barrons to come back in their Reagan / 3rd Way / Milton Friedman Revolution. So now, in many ways, we are back to a New Gilded Age, fighting extreme inequality, depression, and fascism. Just as FDR could be pushed, we can push Biden. It’s all about organizing. “We need to change the conditions under which we can organize, so that we can organize more.”-Jane McAlevey.
If we let Trump take another four years, we stand to lose what shred of democracy we have left. Democracy is weak in the U.S., but it’s not dead yet. We know Biden is a right-wing corporatist, but his administration will still be much better than the far right fascist Republican administration. Kamala Harris is now looking the presidency, and she knows she will be challenged from the left if she continues to represent her corporate donors over public interests. With mass movements on the rise, they can be pushed, Republicans can’t. Trump will continue to kidnap protestors on the left into unmarked vans. What we have seen so far, is obviously, just practice for what’s coming, if we decide not to make the only vote, which has a chance of being counted against fascism.
Trump will not win the popular vote. Republicans almost never do. He will be the loser again. The only question is, can we win by enough, to override the corruption in the system? It all comes down to… …How much do we want to avoid living under a fascist dictatorship? Because, we’re going to have to win by 6,000,000 votes, most likely, to get the electoral college. 40% of the electorate do not vote. Most of them agree with progressive policies. So, we cannot win them over by pretending Biden’s progressive, they know he’s not. And, we can’t win them over by pandering to the right. The best strategy is the honest message that he can be somewhat influenced by a mass movement for economic, environmental, and social justice, where as Trump cannot. Trump panders to his xenophobic base and wins. Democrats malign their progressive base and lose. Let’s not have a repeat of 2016.
We are tired of this, we never wanted this, but as long as we are alive, we are in it. This is not going away soon. Voting is not everything, but it’s not nothing. We’ve never gotten the greater evil, because too many people voted for the lesser evil. Remember, the lesser evil, is still less evil. The time to vote for a great candidate was in the primary. We didn’t lose, because the centrists wouldn’t let us win. We lost because of exhaustion, dispiritedness, apathy (the corporatists we need to vote out), and the failed strategy of DemExit, which has been the ever increasing trend for decades. I’m not here to blame anyone. I’m here to ask you to rethink your strategy, considering this dire moment. A year before an election, we can support whomever we think is best. But now, just days before the election we know it will be Biden or Trump, a corporatist or a fascist. That’s not hyperbole. They’re not exactly the same. One administration will clearly be better than the other. And, to pretend otherwise amounts to nothing more than an exercise in futility and disempowerment. Thinking that someone else could win at this point is obviously delusional. A non-vote or 3rd party vote is a message sent to no one. It will not be received. It is also not a moral act, since moral acts are not predictably meaningless. If you care about results, it will have no effect on the outcome. But, since 2018 the strategy has been clear.
When the Democratic party was the party of workers, we were also the dominant party. That was no coincidence. With Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, and your local DSA, we can organize and take the party back. Democracy is dying, but it’s not dead, yet. Voting does not contribute to the system of corporate billionaire class control over our lives. It is one tool that we have, along with other types of civic engagement, and civil disobedience. We need to use them all. Remember AOC. My nephew and I canvased for her in October of 2017, before her campaign took off. There was no way of telling at that point that should could win, other than her being an incredible talented candidate. As you know, she went on to take out the forth most powerful Democrat. And, in primary after primary since then, we’ve been electing progressives. Every time we elect a progressive, we take out a corporatist. There’s your new party. But, this will eventually become impossible, if we keep becoming more fascistic. Scholars around the world believe the U.S. has only a 20% chance of not becoming a fascist dictatorship. The mail-in ballots will take weeks to count. Trump will probably stop the count within a week due to Proud Boy protests Most polling stations should be as safe as going to the supermarket. So, if you can, vote in person. I’m afraid it might be more of a threat to our lives, if we don’t. Unless you have some other tragedy November 3rd, please do the one thing that could count against fascism. We will achieve more fighting Biden, than fighting Trump. But either way, there is no giving up. Until we become refugees fleeing fascism, the fight continues. …and even then, it will continue.
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Post by: Kurt Riebel: artist, activist
#ResistTheCorporatists @uResist
When The Loser Takes Office
