What is Our Political Strategy Now?

Barring some unforeseen miracle from the heavens these will be the mainstream choices in America during next November's election.  Bad and bad.....

I won't pull the lever for either of them.  Some will vilify me, and others like me, for trying to put "Trump into the White House".  What about the Supreme Court they will scream?

I will be voting for Jill Stein from the Green Party.  She is solid on all the issues and gives me a chance to give my vote to someone who actually earned it and represents what I truly believe in.

I am not about to spend my entire adult life working for peace and justice and then turn around and vote for someone like Clinton who is hell bent to destroy everything I have worked for and gave my life to build.  I would essentially be betraying everything I've ever stood for - it's just not going to happen.

Voting is a sacred right and I intend to keep my vote as clean as I possibly can.

It was the movements during the Great Depression that forced the Democrats into creating jobs (Civilian Conservation Corps), 40-hour work week, Social Security, regulation of the banks, and a whole lot more. Socialist, Communist and Populist parties never actually took power in Washington but the message from the grassroots was so strong that many of their demands actually become policy.  We need that same strategy again - more than ever.

Today we have strong social movements across the nation calling for increased minimum wage, dealing with climate change, taxing the rich, health care for all, education for all, stopping endless war, ending police violence, and other vital issues.  Bernie Sanders has been an important voice for many of those issues (though on military spending and endless war he has been weak).  But the corporate controlled Democrats (and their media allies) have done their dirty work to suppress enough votes to slide Clinton into the position where she will now likely get the nomination.

(I urge folks in yet to be held primary states to keep working for Sanders but the wall of obstruction that has been erected to protect Hillary is taller than the Mexico border wall envisioned by Trump.)

What will be needed next is to move the Occupy momentum, that has driven the Sanders campaign, to another level - another vehicle - and that will be Jill Stein and the Greens. Once Hillary gets the nomination she will largely throw progressive issues under the bus as she moves back to her more comfortable rightward leaning home turf.  Just like when Obama rode the anti-war fever into the White House, and then dropped it to continue the Bush II war program, Hillary will do the same.

Voting for Hillary will get us nothing but more corporate dominated government.  Same with Trump.  If you want to send shock waves into the hearts of the corporate oligarchy then vote for Stein and keep organizing.

Years ago I heard the voices from the corporate political parties say that they wanted to make elections so mean - so nasty - that the public would reject the idea of voting at all.  It would be easier to rule if less people participated.  So right on schedule we hear vast percentages of the public now parroting the line: "Why bother, it's a waste of your time.  It's a rigged game."

That is a hard line of thought to argue with.  But I am a believer in strategy.  Giving up and walking away is not a strategy.  It is the path to certain defeat and further chaos for the coming generations.  I want to keep standing up for truth to the bitter end.  So in this case I spend every day of my waking life fighting for peace and justice - elections are just one sliver of my overall work.  But even with elections I want every ounce of energy I put into them to stand for something - to have some larger meaning.

See this short video below featuring right-winger Paul Weyrich as he made the case for reducing the numbers of people who actually vote so that the corporate oligarchic forces will have an easier time controlling everything.  He is rubbing our faces into their strategy for control and domination of the planet.  I am not about to surrender to these rich punks who don't care about the people or our Mother Earth.

I'm not going to vote for any of these corporate candidates... they were put in place to represent bankster interests while betraying the greater good. I won't vote for bad or bad.