INTERESTING TIMES

Listening to the media reports about Trump and Clinton, I understand the frustration of the majority of voters.  Most of us know that the "establishment" politicians, like Clinton, are part and parcel with the corporatocracy that has made our two party system a joke.  The two parties are simply different faces of the same government which is beholden to big business and rich investors.  While the Democrats make more of an effort to care for the most impoverished, neither side is actually effective at reducing poverty.  The Republicans assert that the poor are not helped by a free ride, and this may be true.  It is true that during the Great Depression here in the US, people got healthier.

Trump, on the other hand, is not part of the "establishment" except in so far as he is rich, and he is stupid enough to become their tool, just as Shrub did.  His daily empty statements, like what I just heard that he "will win" 95% of the black American vote, are lunacy.  There is no way that he is getting 95% of any vote, except perhaps of those white male voters who are angry and desperate enough to commit suicide but would rather have someone else do it for them.  I understand the line of thought that says "crash this train", that is to say, destroying our corporatocracy is the first step toward building something new.  This is more the approach of libertarians who understand that big business will not be dethroned by small measures.  Electing Trump would be a drastic measure that could crash this train, except for the fact that the corporate Republican powers will feed his ego and narcissism and keep him busy and distracted by giving him televised glory while they run things.  In other words, it won't work.  Electing Trump will not derail the corporate train.

The Libertarian and Green candidates are relatively attractive in this election.  Unfortunately the Libertarians appear to be almost as "estalishment" as Clinton, see Gary Johnson's positions here.  Jill Stein of the Green party is a physician and one smart cookie, and she actually makes the most sense to me of any of the candidates.  She knows that our two-party system is broken, and she addresses that question and others with a raft of information instead of party lines or defund-it-all ideology.

I do not know what it would take to persuade a majority of voters to choose third-party candidates, but I pray that I live to see it.  At this moment it appears to me that Clinton will win because so many people are terrified of the specter of a Trump presidency.  His racism, bogus claims and impetuous thin-skinned personality are enough to disqualify him for all but the most blindered of voters.  It is true that if he were elected the Republican party would attempt to control him, but we all know that he would be more likely to push the nuclear button than any other president in living memory.  While it bears discussing why we refrain from using nukes, just as it bears discussing why we can't as a society afford freeloaders, we might want to discuss it very well before we hand any control to a tool such as Trump.

I am sure I've mentioned it before, but it is my belief that in order to build a majority that can beat both established parties, we need to build a bridge between the far right Libertarians and the far left Greens.  When this happens we might actually wrest our democracy back from its service to business.  It would be heralded as a great crisis, just like the Brexit vote, but don't believe everything you hear in the news.  A reduction in our GDP might be good for us.  More unemployment is not an entirely bad thing.  We Americans need to get back to the project of taking good care of ourselves and our dear ones, building community, and being real people face to face with other real people.  This wealthy life of internet and automobiles has created a Great Satan that is making us sad.

** first use of tag: green party

This ad makes light of gigantic changes--but presents them as something that CAN be done, which is why it will really shake things up. Because the bottom line is that the rest of them won't even TALK about such tremendous change. It's too frightening. By making an ad that is cartoonish and humorous, the RP campaign is re-introducing ideas that have been taboo up to now, and still are taboo to a large segment of the population. But that segment is embattled, and it takes outrageousness to cause a sea change. I remain fascinated and impressed with the man, in spite of his age and the media's disrespect. This will be his last presidential attempt, I believe.

As you may know I lean libertarian. I am skeptical whenever government authority is imposed. There has to be a good reason for government to exist, or to do anything at all. So it could come as a surprise to you that I think universal HPV vaccination is worth considering. I am sensitive to the argument by Andrew McCarthy that the state should not be "encouraging sexual promiscuity by socializing its cost." HPV is easy to avoid. All you have to do is keep your mucus membranes away from everyone else's sexual equipment. Easy? To ask humans to abstain from sex, at any age, is a losing battle. Teens especially. You may get your kid convinced that saving her virginity is important, but another kid might change her mind. Those who are abstinent may be vocal, but they are a small minority.
( What are we looking at here? )

He recently said that an anti-abortion position is a libertarian position based on faith. Faith in what? The bogusness of global warming? HIS god? I am offended. Faith has no legitimacy as a basis for social law, because we don't all have faith in the same things. I had thought that Ron Paul was for the true and full separation of church and state, and that he could be counted on to keep them separate in his own dealings. He has just proven me wrong. The man I had thought was the last moral politician has fallen by the wayside. It all comes down to that same old debate about when life begins.

SOURCE
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/04/ron-paul-anti-abortion.html

She was born in Russia and immigrated to the US in 1905 at the age of 21. She wrote a bunch of interesting books in her time. I discovered Ayn Rand when I was in college in the 1980's. I read a pile of her books, and passed them on to my friends. The Fountainhead was the first that I read, followed by Atlas Shrugged and then plodding on through a few more before I burned out. In these novels she began to develop Objectivism, her very own philosophy. She became quite famous later in life and was associated with Alan Greenspan and a host of other intellectuals.
( more about Rand, Objectivism, and a little current events )

My favorite repeat presidential candidate was in the news yesterday. A group of conservatives in Washington DC had a straw poll and decided that they will support Dr Paul if he will run again. We sure could use his pragmatism and economic smarts about now. He is so much saner than most of his supporters. But now it appears that the Conservative Political Action Conference participants may well be seeing clearly past the idiocy that is the remnants of the Republican party.

Paul was preferred by 31% of voters in the Conservative Political Action Conference's presidential preference straw poll yesterday, one of the strongest wins in CPAC history. Sarah Palin, who skipped the group's conference, came in a distant third with 7% of the vote... I don't know if you heard about how Ms Palin tried to hitch her little red wagon onto the Tea Party in Nashville and didn't get pulled along as much as she would have liked....and the Tea Party protests were originally the idea of some Ron Paul supporters. The Tea Party turned into a "party" when everyone who was disenfranchised with Obama for any reason (including racism) joined in...but a crowd like that will never come up with a reasonable platform.

Back to the news: Mitt Romney, after topping CPAC's poll for the past three years, came in second, with 22% of the 2400 votes cast. So the Mormon is losing some ground but he's still up there. He's one to watch.

Here are the instructions on how to run for office as a libertarian. If I weren't so busy, I might do it. I just think we need more regular people to get involved in politics, to drive the debate back to what the people actually want and need from government, and away from what the party machinery and corporations favor.