Category Archives: Politics

Dr. Jill Stein

Politics, Uncategorized

If there is one candidate who I can say I won’t vote for, who is not a Republican or Democrat, it is Dr. Jill Stein.

When I saw her debate Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson on RT America in 2012, I was really disappointed by her diction and delivery. She played overly nice (and did it poorly), he played “attack the socialist” (and did it glibly and viciously, like many of the libertarians and “fiscal conservatives” in my life). I couldn’t tell if she was serious, or if she was high. She wouldn’t defend herself, and she wouldn’t defend her party.

She’s been a fuck-up of a candidate for the Green Party, just like Cynthia McKinney was in 2008; McKinney now plays “American conspiracy theorist-in-residence” for Iran’s Press TV.

Why not select someone who has actually won an office of local leadership? Gayle McLaughlin, Green former mayor of Richmond, CA? No? Not someone with actual chops in leadership? You’re not fucking serious, Green Party.

The biggest sign that I’ve tuned out of presidential politics is that I’m becoming so much more involved in helping build a local candidate’s campaign. Over time, I degenerated in some way because I felt that I didn’t have that much of a relationship with the Bernie campaign. I’ve come to see presidential politics as not only out of my hands, but infuriating in their inanity. I’m learning more about our local candidates. I’ve known for a while that nothing will get done if I don’t get involved and do something.

At the same time, I do not want to be complacent. I know full well that our state government is ran by people who see themselves as the least connected with the federal government or any metropolitan familiarity, utterly possessive of a government which reflects their culture, and maddeningly dismissive of our history and our lackings in basic protections. To change this status quo, a fundamental shift in representation should redirect control of the state away from rural areas and toward urban areas. The day that I give up on this is the day I redirect my goal, utterly and totally, toward relocating to California.

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

I’m having jitters about voting bragging rights. I confess: I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, my first time voting in a presidential election. I remember writing in Nader, as a protest against the two-party system, but I felt at the time that Obama, with his story and his meteoric rise to the top of a presidential coalition, was inevitable at some point.

Now, in liberal circles, it’s a bragging right to say that you voted for Obama in both primary and general elections both in 2008 and 2012. I didn’t buy the hype in 08 enough to vote for him, and I don’t remember voting in the Democratic primary that year,

Now, because of how impressed by him I have become over the years, I sorta wish I did buy that hype in 2008. But at least I voted for him in 2012, the same year I met Fenika Miller and created the Houston County Democratic Party website as a personal project.

Now we’re talking about that inevitability with Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Sanders is the primary challenger for the nomination. But that has been undercut by voter turmoil and a lower Democratic base turnout for both Clinton and Sanders.

It was easier for me to go for Bernie Sanders when he announced his candidacy, but this cycle has soured so much for me. I just saw two Facebook friends break up hard over this rivalry the other day.

In my feed, on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve seen pro-Sanders people wax conspiracist and cranky in a right-wing way against Clinton, I’ve seen pro-Clinton people wax anti-socialist and paternalistic in a right-wing way against Sanders. And I say “in a right-wing way” because this all sounds like shit you read on FreeRepublic or Breitbart. Like, STOP IT PEOPLE. STOP BEING ASSHOLES. Gods.

You know what? I’d vote for Obama again. Third freaking term. But he’s graying at the speed of light. Argh. I don’t know about bragging rights, saying that you’d voted for one who you knew was the “right one”. I don’t know if that makes you a better person. I don’t know if that makes you psychic. But I know that I’m not voting to keep Republicans in check. I know that I’m not voting to prevent anything from happening. I’m not going to vote my fears, or for strategy or tactics.

I’m going to vote for the things I want, the ideas I want to see become flesh. They can come from either candidate, but they must have a liberal Congress to make them happen. I implore you, all my friends: don’t vote your fears, your strategy or your tactics. Fear is the worst choice. They tear you apart, just as they’ve hit me at points this election cycle. Vote for the change you wish to see in the next four years. Press your candidates on these issues.

Vote for more liberals and progressives in office, people who will vote for the Equality Act, an amendment to overturn Citizens United, an increased minimum wage, a Right to Vote Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, decriminalization of marijuana, for renewable energy, for expanding Medicare to all people, and so on. Vote for people who will bring those laws into the state and local level, too. Vote for those solutions. Vote for constitutional change. Vote for equality. Vote for hope. #YesWeCan

Meeting Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

I woke up early for this. #BlackHistoryMonthBreakfast and meeting Congressmember #SheilaJacksonLee. Good speech!

Also, she implored me and the guy who graciously took this photo (Jeremy Ackles) to consider supporting Hillary in the Dem primary over building on, rather than “ripping up”, the ACA. I didn’t get to mention to her that I support Bernie before she left, but I did introduce myself by telling her that I admire her work on Haiti and defending the Cherokee Freedmen community. But hearing this from an African-American congresswoman from Texas, this makes sense.

There is a fear among incumbent Dems, perhaps well-founded, that Bernie will campaign on starting over on healthcare reform, taking us back to the drawing board of 2009-2010. Convos with Dominick on the utter dearth of healthcare for isolated parts of South Georgia come to mind, especially for African-American rural residents.

Maybe I’m weighing between the heart and the head. Heart-driven progressives are concerned with taking on Wall Street, Big Pharma, Fossil Fuels, and other big profit-driven or security-driven institutions. Head-driven liberals, especially those concerned with maximizing the social contract for their historically-disadvantaged communities, are concerned with making the best (and better) of the here-and-now. My heart and head are at play. Revolution or chess match? Immediate uprising or long-term reform?

I have no doubt that Clinton would be able to lead needed reforms or that Sanders would be the voice of conscience as head of state, even though Republicans have the downticket advantage. But which approach can we afford, the moral appeals of Sanders or the effective pragmatism of Clinton? It feels like the most dichotomous party primary in history.

One thing you will not see from me on Facebook or Twitter is me explaining Sanders to African-American voters, women or Hillary supporters. I will not. Also, with the outright verbal violence being done between Bernie and Hillary supporters and Twitter corporate starting to lose users, one can only imagine if Twitter was this popular a microblogging platform back in 2007, when President Obama posted his first tweet as a Senator. Now, it’s incredibly vicious. 9 Years Later, two people are now trying to campaign on his legacy.
Something I and Jeremy noticed on the way out of Atlanta from the #GeorgiaUnites rally this afternoon: the beds and bags of all the homeless people living under both sides of a bridge on Coca Cola Pl SE, in freezing, windy, below-zero weather. Neither of us had seen just how bad, or horrific, homelessness is in Atlanta until that moment. And neither of us Muscogee residents could stand the cold on the Georgia State Capitol for 2 mere hours. I don’t know how to parse that sight.

Black Republicans and Black Nationalism

Politics, Uncategorized,

I would better respect the Black Republican platform when they can recognize that the Black American Nationalism and “Do for Self”-ism of Garvey, Malcolm X, Maulana Karenga and the RBG (red, black, green) movement is as “American” and “Free-Market” as the nationalism and conservatism espoused by the Republican Party. But of course, the nationalism of some Americans is not the nationalism of most Americans.

The cultural nationalism of African Americans has never been the nationalism of all Americans, and has been treated as “subversive” and, more recently, “self-segregating”. Yet the Black Panther Party, their internal factional violence notwithstanding, was the direct opposite of African-American cultural nationalism. The BPP was intentionally interracial, critical of the foundational normalities of apple-pie America, and was pro-#BlackLivesMatter before it became a hashtag.

To this day, the short-lived BPP has become a recurring meme, a legend for those who wish for interracial solidarity and a change to the racial and economic contract which holds the American status quo on a nigh-unquestionable platform. Books, films, comic books, music, music videos and even the concert staged by Beyonce last night at #SB50 have come to pay some degree of homage to the BPP and their members in the American mass media. Quotes and coinages from members – i.e., Stokely Carmichael’s “institutional racism” – recur to this day in political discussions, but are consigned largely to discussions on the American left and center as the centering of people of color continues apace.

Meanwhile, the cultural nationalism of RBG, of Kwanzaa, of the person who waxes poetic and political for “Mother Africa”, remains marginal in African-American communities.

Perhaps it is sidelined to an expensive, academic pursuit that the average African-American can’t afford. Perhaps it clashes too much with the lived experiences of African-Americans who work, live, play and do business with diverse ranges of people frequently. But Black Republicans in general, I find, can’t even get behind that. They subscribe to the entirety of the myth of America as the land of the Founding Fathers(tm), in which racism of any kind is old history, the free market reigns supreme, ne’er-do-wells should be punished with the full savagery of the state and the vigilante, life begins at the expense of the woman, and the pure image of America must be protected from the adulteration of college professors and other deviants.

This foundational myth, one which is cobbled together across a range of political currents to please a coalition, is one that I find to be static and untenable in the longer run. It’s full of contradictions. The more I see of America, the less I see myself, my experiences or the histories of people of similar background in this myth.

I can’t see myself as a Republican, especially in Georgia. I wish I didn’t have to be a Democrat, especially not in Georgia. I’d be a Working Families Party member, or I’d rename the DPG to something that is relevant. But I vote against this myth.

First Afro-French Justice Minister, Christiane Taubira, just resigned from office to refuse approving a bill stripping citizenship from accused terrorists on civil liberties grounds. She stuck by her principles throughout her time in office. Introduced marriage equality to France, now known as #LoiTaubira. Unbought and Unbossed. I greatly admire her due to this speech. #ChristianeTaubira #Taubira

This poker-faced ratfucker, David Daleiden, started out at homeschool baby and ratfucker Lila Rose’s Live Action circus before starting his own group, the “Center for Medical Progress” in 2013. Interesting that fellow ratfucker James O’Keefe, who posted the ACORN “sting videos” and bugged former Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office, also got his start with Lila Rose back in 2006 by filming Lila Rose posing as a pregnant 15-year-old girl at a PP clinic. They all happen to describe themselves as “culturally Catholic”. #BirdsOfAFeather #ProBirth

Greg Abbott Wants a Convention to Undermine the Working Class

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Spoiler alert: these amendments would solidify power in the hands of states which consider themselves mini-states and fiefdoms, like Texas.

Summary:

“Prohibit congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one state. Require Congress to balance its budget. Prohibit administrative agencies from creating federal law. Prohibit administrative agencies from pre-empting state law. Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision. Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution. Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds. Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a federal law or regulation.”

Yet, none of this would be extended to cities. The gall of state-supremacists like Greg Abbott.