The Dark Is Rising

North Carolina Election results | abc11.com

Thoughts on last night's results after this sinks in ...

That's how my fellow North Carolinians voted for the direction of our country. Lies, authoritarianism, misogyny, bigotry, climate denial, and kleptocracy for the foreseeable future.

As disgusted as I am with the state and national number for Trump, it's the vicious and widespread left in-fighting that seems to be the primary source of my nausea since last night. But let's each of us start by looking inward and reckoning with our own accountability before we look outward. I'm serious on this, until I've seen folks hold themselves accountable, I'm not listening to any more of the shit they have to say about whose fault (other than their own) it is that we're in this mess.

Here on the ol' blog I railed against Trump, and on twitter, but on facebook I mostly avoided partisan discussion. I read, but didn't reply to the frequent posting of my Hillary-hating friends because I didn't want to poison the well. I think I should have done more. By trying to stay civil, not say anything when I couldn't say anything nice, not taking the time to give simple fact-based, evidence-supported arguments against the regurgitations from RW Bullshit Machine, I failed to hold my friends and family accountable for part in normalizing Trump's extremist positions. Practically speaking, this may be the only way I could have any real influence on anyone's vote.

Could I have done volunteer work, or contributed to a rival campaign? I didn't help someone who couldn't otherwise get to their polling station. I have a small car, and couldn't have taken very many. Might I have contributed to a groundswell of volunteerism by example? Perhaps my actions would have a more impact than the handful I votes I may have been able to facilitate, but honestly, I don't feel particularly bad about not doing more in that regard. Financially, I can barely get by month to month, I don't feel bad at all about not putting money into the broken campaign finance system.

Should I have voted for Clinton instead of Jill Stein, as many bitter HRC supporters have argued? Fuck that. I voted my conscience. I voted for the candidate I felt would do the most to combat climate change and support the progressive causes I believe in. If more people voted for the candidate that best represented their interests, we wouldn't be in this mess. You want to blame third party voters for your candidates lack of appeal? Knock yourself out for all the good it does. Stein voters did not sway this election nationally, here in NC, or anywhere else that I know of. Certainly not Florida. (Will come to back to the Gary Johnson vote shortly.)

After reviewing my own failings, I feel like I'm ready to identify the entities and institutions most responsible for the consequences of Trump's victory: Trump himself, Trump voters, the Republican Party, the mainstream media, the DNC, Wikileaks, James Comey, the Electoral College, and those who smeared Bernie and his supporters during the Democratic primary process.

Trump himself is often vilified, but I don't generally see it in the context of blame assignment for expected impacts of his policies. I get that he's more the object of that discussion, rather than the subject, but it's worth noting that the person most responsible for the harm Trump has already done to political culture -- not to mention the people he's assaulted and screwed over -- is Trump himself. He should accountable, whether it's in court for his crimes, or in terms of votes when it comes to his policy outcomes.

Trump voters, of course, are the reason he won the election. And by "Trump voters," I mean "white people." Chicken shit, entitled, bigoted, misogynist (and yes, I include white women who voted for Trump in all these categories, deal with it), morally retarded, ignorant-as-fuck white people. I hear all the pleas for understanding, and understand where they're coming from. It's a good place, no doubt. What I can't get over is the fact that Trump voters had another choice in Bernie Sanders, someone who understood their economic fears, the impact of neoliberal capitalism on their lives, and they rejected him for the guy who assaults women, hates American values, and happily stokes their fear of "the Other."  Over half (Trump and Johnson voters) of the people who voted for President in 2016 voted for a complete asshole, and there's no escaping that makes them assholes. (And, right now, I'm not much of a fan of the other half of the country right now either.)

For all the recriminations against third party and non-voters from the "left", it seems like a lot of folks are incapable of understanding what votes are, how they work, and how they are earned by candidates. Now, I'm not saying I don't understand how a vote that *could* have been one for candidate, when cast for another, hurts the first candidate's chances of winning. I don't dispute how numbers add up; I dispute the premise that votes "belong" to one candidate or another, and that a voter has somehow sinned when they cast their vote for the candidate they feel best represents them without regard to how that may affect the final tally. If your position is: only the candidates the corporate media say are legitimate are actually legitimate; well, have different understandings how representative democracy is supposed to work. Don't tell me I'm some ideological fantasist. I live in the real world. I work and pay taxes. I accept the reality of the human role in climate change. I live in a small town, but have gay friends and family, and I worry for the civil rights of my fellow Americans and for the safety of my daughter in world where rape culture is white-washed as boys-will-be-boys good times. I understand the consequences of a Trump administration. What I understand, that I think you don't, is that the Democratic party won't change if they know they can count on your vote. The Democratic party does not fight for social justice, equality, or for poor and working people to anywhere near the degree it ought to. If we want political representation that does those things, then we need to advocate, agitate, and vote for it, or WE WILL NEVER GET IT. A political party that fights for the future of a all humanity is worth fighting for.

The Republican party was a largely passive, when it wasn't encouraging, host for a white nationalist parasite. Sure, there were a few who made tepid, and not always backed up, criticisms of Trump, but the GOP set the stage for Trump, or someone like him, to rise to power.

The DNC betrayed us all by sabotaging Bernie's campaign. Wikileaks conveniently failed find anything worth sharing about Trump, no doubt pleasing Putin in the process. The mainstream media just played along to tease more profits out of a horse race. Hillary supporters started using FLOTUS's "We go high," line, but they sure as fuck didn't in securing Hillary the nomination. The EC burned us in 2000 and has done so again. It is a perversion of democracy to make one vote count more than another. The idea that it protects anyone is outdated, if it ever did what it's supposed to in the first place. Oh, in the dispirited winding down I nearly forgot about Comey's FBI playing the EMAIL! game. Law enforcement in this country is a fucking disaster.

Look, I know I lost steam, but all the think pieces are out there. All the takes, so hot. I just came out to say, "Fuck me? No, fuck you. You fucks. We all got what we deserved."

Related: "Fuck Everything and Blame Everyone."

Edit: And one more thing. When you're attacking "third-party voters" as if Johnson voters and Stein voters could have tipped the scales towards Hillary, you're conveniently forgetting who the fuck Johnson voters are, and that Libertarians are just as closely tied to white nationalism and all that shit, as "mainstream" Republicans. They were never going to vote for Hillary, so stop pretending there is some equivalency between supporters of the Libertarian and Green candidates. Stein's vote was so small, it couldn't have saved our sorry asses anyways. Johnson voters, if anything, should be thanked for not voting for Trump like they (mostly) otherwise would have.

Richard Burr, United States Senator (But Hopefully Not For Much Longer)

Richard Burr Says Shooting Hillary Clinton Is Hilarious, Judicial Obstruction Is Awesome | News: 

And if Trump loses, and Burr loses, then oh well. Give it about three years tops before Burr helps form Burr, Bayh, and Lieberman Global Intelligence Consulting, or does something similarly dystopian in which he can make real money and have a bigger say over policy without being forced to pander to voters anymore.

There's a splash of cold water for those of us hoping a Deborah Ross victory will reduce the amount of harm Burr is able to inflict on the country as a Senator.

Blogger's Digest

Need to clean out the to-be-blogged-about items I've got building up in feedly. Prefer the one-post-per-link-or-subject approach, but the backlog is too daunting. So, it's a digest post. Possibly the first of several?

• The Sherlock Holmes class I wish UConn offered when I was a student
• Rolling Stone's Top 100 TV shows list is not terrible. Deadwood too low. Doctor Who too low. 
• Dangerous Minds resurfaces Theory.org Trading Cards
• Maybe police chiefs could focus more on not killing people, less on their stupid religious biases
• Maybe sheriffs could worry more about other police murdering people than where trans kids go to the bathroom
• Super abusive but cute greeting cards. I can think of a Wake County sheriff deserving a card ...
• Round up of free, classic audiobooks
• Know your cognitive biases
• Know your deplorables
• One of this blog's chief laments, as expressed by Samantha Bee
• Giving Justin Trudeau the side eye -- we're on to you, Canada.
• As an atheist, I guess I should see Sausage Party then? Hmm.
• The Pixies!
• Been working on the swimming and running. Once I get a new bike, will start the last training leg before attempting a sprint triathlon. Speeding safely downhill seems like a good thing to bone up on.
• Know your Derrida.
• My go-to means of viewing movies by ... emm ... occult means appears to have been put down by The Man so I've fallen way behind seeing hard-to-find movies that I really want to see, like High Rise.

Here Comes The Argument (For The Lesser of Two Evils)

Third Parties & Voting for the Lesser Evil | Talking Philosophy

Here's a snippet from the linked post, it's worth reading the whole thing, but the root of my disagreement with LaBossiere is in this bit:

In the upcoming election, I intend to follow my principle. While I voted for Sanders in the primary and prefer him over Hillary, I think that a Trump presidency would be vastly worse for the country as a whole than another Clinton presidency. Hillary, as I see her, is essentially a 1990s moderate Republican with a modern liberal paint job. As such, she can be counted on as a competent business as usual politician who will march along with the majority of the population in regards to social policy (such as same sex marriage and gun regulation). Trump has no experience in office and I have no real idea what he would do as president. As such, I am taking the classic approach of choosing the lesser evil and the devil I know. If I was voting for the greater evil, Cthulhu would have my vote. 

It might be objected that my approach is flawed. After all, if a person votes based on a rational assessment of the impact of an election on everyone, then she could end up voting against her own self-interest. What a person should do, it could be argued, is consider the matter selfishly—to vote based on what is in her interest regardless of the general good. 

This approach does have considerable appeal and is based on an established moral philosophy, known as ethical egoism. This is the view that a person should always take the action that maximizes her self-interest. Roughly put, for the ethical egoist, she is the only one with moral value.

Does it leap out at you, too? For me, it's the reduction of voting for the candidate who best represents your values, whom you believe would make the best President, to an ethical egoist position. Altruism vs. ethical egoism here is a frame, not an entirely worthless one, but a frame that is hung over the argument to facilitate clubbing together would be Green or Libertarian voters with Ayn Rand and her philosophy for morons. (Sure, it actually applies to the latter group, but it denigrates the motives, aspirations, and beliefs of Greens and other progressives.)

If we consider the morality of voting for a third party candidate from deontological or utilitarian (consequentialist) perspectives, it's suspiciously convenient (though, of course, not impossible) with this framing that a vote for the Clinton can be cast as a virtuous action either way; not to mention suspiciously convenient that a principled vote for a candidate who is not merely a lesser-of-three-evils option, but a "good" option, then doesn't seem to have a philosophical leg to stand on.

So, let's remove the frame. My counterargument is that a vote for a third party candidate who best represents not only my own views, but who best represents the views of a majority of Americans -- views which I think most ethicists agree are generally "better" than dehumanizing, wealth-concentrating, warmongering, environment degrading, etc. -- is, at least from the deontological perspective, a more virtuous vote, than the one for the neoliberal candidate (or the fascist buffoon).

That we shouldn't consider voting for the best candidate a ideal normative action requires we bring in some consequentialist notions based on cynical assumptions: "a third party vote is wasted", "the mass media doesn't recognize a candidate as viable, therefore she is not viable", "if you don't vote for the lesser of the two evils, you increasing the risk that the greater of two evils will win and make things worse than they otherwise would have been", "it's selfish to vote for the candidate who best represents your values", and so on. Now, some of those are harder to dismiss than others, and I'm sure many will find no fault at all with the one that says if you don't vote for the lesser of two evils, you're effectively supporting the evil, which -- by logical necessity, I think -- would make that voter actively evil.

What subscription to that belief fails to recognize is how much it leans on a host of other assumptions, which I don't think even those people who take that position would agree with. The major networks and big newspapers don't get to decide what candidates are viable based on how it benefits their bottom line to align with the oligarchical agents in our society. That's a power determination that the internet and social media have long since undercut. It is easier today than it ever has been to find the strong arguments and dismiss the blatantly self-serving propaganda of the super-wealthy elites. A refusal to consider a third party candidate as viable, unless it's a Ross Perot-like approved option of the rich, is nothing more than a mix of intellectual laziness and moral cowardice. "Oh, the rich say this person can't win, so they are going to ignore her? I guess I might as well accept their judgment over my own," says the sucker born every minute.

Put another way, I don't think "you shouldn't vote in your best interest, and in the best interest of the country, because most people won't" makes sense. Rather, that notion reinforces the "most people won't" when any position we take ought to be voting in the best interest of the country. (Or, if you're feeling selfish, voting based on self-interest alone.)

Until people make their voices count, they won't count. I don't owe anybody my vote, and I am thinking of the greater good when I vote for the candidate who shares more of my values than any of the others. It's not my fault she "can't win," it's yours, LaBossiere and your ilk.

Now, I could be wrong. Maybe Stein would be an ineffective, or bad, President. But I'm not convinced of that by arguments based on cynical acceptance of the plutocratic definition of viable candidates. Convince me Stein is wrong on foreign policy. Convince me she's wrong on energy policy, on civil rights issues, on women's health issues, on wealth inequality issues ... go ahead. I'm waiting.

If we get Trump/Pence in 2016, then we deserve the fucking disaster that's coming.

If we get Clinton/Kaine, then the mitigated disaster that's coming is what we deserve. Enjoy your endless war, continuing concentration of wealth, private prisons, surveillance state, corporate welfare, and new trade treaties. I'll continue to speak against them, to vote against them, and remind you what you voted for when you do, too.

---

Anticipated questions/objections:

Did Nader cost Gore the 2000 election?
No. Gore cost Gore the 2000 election. Also, the Supreme Court. Also, Clinton, whose Administration was more moderate Republican than progressive. Had Clinton/Gore been more progressive than NAFTA and DADT, we never get into the mess Bush left us. Had they been more progressive, Gore would have been able to steal Nader's thunder; he could have co-opted the message with credibility and won those voters over. He didn't try, and wouldn't have been credible if he had.

Don't I care Trump could win if I don't vote Hillary?
Of course I do. A Hillary Presidency would be better than a Trump, no doubt. But a Stein would be better than either. I'm voting the way I think people should vote, hoping they eventually will learn because I want change, a bold new direction, an end to Citizens United, and much more. I don't believe Hillary wants those things.

"Don't Worry," I Said. "Trump Can't Win," I Assured Them ...

This whole racist-old-people-returning-us-to-fascism-before-they-die trend across the Western world is so exhausting and stressful.

— Brendan Keogh (@BRKeogh) June 24, 2016

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... but is it impossible I've underestimated how eager neoliberalism's most vulnerable (the elderly, the working classes clinging to or losing sight of the standard of living their parents and grandparents enjoyed) are to accept the scapegoats the fascist end of the elite spectrum are foisting on them (immigrants, the non-whites, non-Christians)?

Sure hope young people (and old lefties like myself) will be out voting for their future in every town, county, state, and national election, before the crazy old racists take advantage of the mess of the neoliberals are making of things.

Bernie Sanders rolling over for the neoliberal Hillary shouldn't disappoint me, pragmatically I'm sure it boils down to lesser-of-two-evilism, but he should have taken a principled stand and broken from the Dems, or encouraged people consider Jill Stein. (But it's ideas like that which make it likelier I'll turn into Don Quixote than a political analyst for MSNBC.)<>br />

Sinking Its Teeth Into Every Organ Of The Public Sector

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems | Books | The Guardian: 

Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the Land, Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which means that competition cannot run its course. Business takes the profits, the state keeps the risk.

The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector.

We've dug ourselves a mighty deep hole. Instead of figuring a way out, we keep taking advice from the shovel salespeople who've set up shop at the top. (They don't even make the shovels -- they've figured out how to get us to make them, so they can rent'em back to us.)

The anguish I'm feeling is from so many Democrats, self-proclaimed liberals, who look at the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and have chose Clinton, a neoliberal (or, a "centrist Republican" if we're settling on labels more accurate than "progressive" but avoiding the fancy ones) and aren't only resigned to her winning the Democratic nomination, but actively arguing for it, closing ranks around her platform of low expectations, hawkish foreign policy, and convenient acceptance of social causes she wouldn't touch just twenty years ago.

Sanders isn't going to win the nomination. Hillary will. (There's not going to be any indictment over emails, or Benghazi, or whatever the tinfoil hat brigade has out for her.) My fear is the #ImWithHer crowd are enabling Hillary's baser instincts, instead of using the Sanders campaign as a way to hold her feet to the fire.

Before You Accuse Me ...

Sick to death of whinging, entitled Democrats insisting a vote for anyone other than Hillary Clinton is tantamount to supporting the GOP and their band of radical, theocratic, bigoted, plutocratic, authoritarian nutters, I started drafting this post to argue against that kind of strategic voting against my best interests. Then a string of tweets caught my eye and I decided to save time and just storify that, so you'll find that below.

Look, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the NC primary -- voted early, the primary is this coming Tuesday -- and there is no chance I will vote for a Republican in the general. However, I won't be voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election. I've had it with Wall Street-funded neo-liberal hawks being in charge; won't vote for another.

I get where the sentiment comes from. I voted for Obama, twice in the general (with great hope the first time) and I voted for Gore, Kerry, and Bill Clinton before that -- although I supported Jerry Brown in 1992. (In 1988, I wasn't old enough to vote to in the general, fell a few months shy, but I was for Dukakis once he sealed the nomination. Had been pulling for Jesse Jackson.) After Obama's first term, I was considering switching to Green and voting for Jill Stein, but ultimately played the game, thinking better Obama than Romney. Had tried to work out a vote swap arrangement where I'd pledge to vote Stein if a Republican leaning Romney would pledge to vote for the Libertarian candidate, but nobody took me up on the offer. Obama's second term was certainly less a disaster than a Romney one would have been, and I shudder to think how quickly Romney and the Senate would have shoved a Scalia clone down our throats, but I still regret not voting against drones, secrecy, and no end in site for the wars in the Middle East, not to mention our disgusting relationships with Saudi Arabia and Israel. It's been eating me up inside that, by voting for Obama, I undercut all my blogging about Saudi Arabia persecutes secular bloggers, and about Israel's apartheid state. I'm against them, but I voted for an administration that has done nothing I can see to try to change either. So, I've been part of the problem.

What I won't listen to are claims that my vote is, effectively, for Drumpf, or whoever the GOP end up nominating. Just as the premise that Nader supporters cost Gore the Presidency, and delivered us into the hands of Bush/Cheney was rubbish, the argument is still naff. Nader supporters aren't to blame for Bush. That's the fault of (among others)  Gore and Gore supporters not being persuasive enough on the progressive issues that Nader championed, which people actually cared about. After the next election, I'll be able to argue my positions with a clear conscience because I won't have voted for another neoliberal.

Common Sense Explains Why Voting for Any Neoliberal Will ‘Spread Terrorism'

Julian Assange Explains Why Voting for Hillary Clinton Will ‘Spread Terrorism’ - Truthdig: 

Stating that Clinton went above the heads of Pentagon generals when it came to Libya, he wrote: “Libya has been destroyed. It became a haven for ISIS. The Libyan national armory was looted and hundreds of tons of weapons were transferred to jihadists in Syria.”

He went on to state that Clinton did not learn from her mistakes, and set out to repeat history in Syria.

“Having learned nothing from the Libyan disaster Hillary then set about trying do the same in Syria. Hillary’s war has increased terrorism, killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians and has set back women’s rights in the Middle East by hundreds of years,” he wrote.

I post this not to single out Hillary, because certainly a vote for any Republican will have the same result, and even Bernie Sanders has sounded more militaristic on occasion than I'm comfortable with.

Dr. Jill Stein is the only candidate who has never sounded like a blood-thirsty imperialist.

New ☆ Tweet from @socarolinesays

BILL: Hil did you see me and Barack on Twitter today HILL: Yep BILL: Oh, you didn’t fave HILL: Nope BILL: Can u fav http://pic.twitter.com/xdBZL6ZGiw

— Caro (@socarolinesays) May 18, 2015

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NC man's obit urges readers to reject Hillary Clinton

NC man's obituary urges readers to reject Hillary Clinton :: WRAL.com:

A North Carolina man's obituary asked two things of friends and family: instead of sending flowers for the funeral, give the money to charity. And don't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016.

Because of the politics, I react to this with a Massive Eye Roll. Thanks, NC Man & Family, for giving us another headline to read in the national news next to more-nefarious-than-usual redistricting and a pregnant woman being shot to death.

But, honestly, I think this is great. By all means, use the obituary to crack wise and share something about yourself and what you believe. We regular folk don't get many chances to experess ourselves in the newspaper. Sure, there's the internet and blogging for that, but your community's paper of record is more august platform than your twitter. Who are we to deny you that last howl from your deathbed?  I applaud this family for honoring their departed loved one with a bit of cheek.

When I go out, I hope my obituary will speak to more than just my birth date and name those survived me.

P.S. To the family of Mr. Upright, you'll be glad to know I plan to vote for a candidate to the left of Hillary Clinton.

There is some truth in this ...

Hillary Clinton: How Your Friends Are Reacting on Social Media – Flavorwire: 

Image via Flavorwire

The “Pox on Both Your Houses” Radical. “Another centrist Corporadem/Republicrat,” will be the rallying cry of this person, who reliably brings up how both parties are owned by the banks, the corporations, and the military industrial complex, and notes that Hillary will be indistinguishable policy-wise from Obama. She hasn’t earned squat, this person will declare, adding a shout-out to Edward Snowden, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders. This person will be close to 100% morally and politically correct, and close to 100% insufferable.

... and it's the "close to 100% morally and politicall correct," bit.

New ☆ Tweet from @TheTweetOfGod

Get ready for Hillary Clinton to pretend to believe the hell out of Me.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) April 12, 2015

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Why Wall Street Loves Hillary (And The Rest Of Us Should Be Nervous)

Why Wall Street Loves Hillary - William D. Cohan - POLITICO Magazine: 

Image via Politico

Many of the rich and powerful in the financial industry—among them, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, Tom Nides, a powerful vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, and the heads of JPMorganChase and Bank of America—consider Clinton a pragmatic problem-solver not prone to populist rhetoric. To them, she’s someone who gets the idea that we all benefit if Wall Street and American business thrive. What about her forays into fiery rhetoric? They dismiss it quickly as political maneuvers. None of them think she really means her populism.

 "Forays into fiery rhetoric"? Like when she voted to invade Iraq? Like when she spoke out against removing the cap on the Social Security payroll tax? If neither Elizabeth Warren nor Bernie Sanders run, don't forget Dr. Jill Stein.