#just my own frustrations on the failures of the electoral system

[psuedomechanical]

ok but...what's the plan

yeah we have to vote biden or we get 4 more years of the idiot currently on trial, but like...where do we go from there? The dems clearly do not give a single flying fuck what the average american voter thinks, because the alternative is completely untenable and always has been. So we get, what, four more years of palestinian genocide? four more years of bombing yemen? four more years of pretending the pandemic is gone? and then what?

vote in another establishment darling who'll do the same as the last three democratic presidents we've had? or Trump? because those are our options, unless we change something. But, I'm...not really sure what *we* can change.

I hate every option here, I'll vote blue because at least then I can keep getting HRT, but, if any of yall "move biden to the left" people are out there: How? This is a time-sensitive question. People are dying.

[himalayaz]

Title: I hope the fact that I voted makes this an easier read 😬 

By: Miliaku Nwabueze

 Part One: Examine the Self

I was appalled at the cognitive dissonance in movement thinkers this summer. I witnessed “radical” organizers, activists, and thought leaders encourage members of the rebellion to channel their rage and frustration with state sanctioned violence into voting. Simply and unilaterally, “Vote!”, was the universally agreed upon call to action. Folks rarely identified whom to vote for or on what which ironically symbolizes the meaningless nature of their compulsing. The investment into state infrastructure puzzled me. 

Organizations and individuals that do land acknowledgements before meetings know whose territory they’re on, but insist on realizing freedom through participating in state systems of governance that further solidify the state’s occupation. I’m not feeling that folks can legitimately have a decolonial or anti-coloniality orientation while they are actively advocating for voting and other methods of change-making that involve the state over autonomous, localized, and collective organization of meeting human needs: the commons. 

The work of feminist scholars such as Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Hartsock and others teach us that we know our world from what identity-as-spaces we occupy. Marginalized people have insight to build consciousness about their worlds and their oppressor’s because their positionality within them is defined in relationship to the violences of structural hegemony (i.e. woman to man, colonized to colonizer/settler, undocumented to citizen, black to white, etc.). Mahmoud Keshavarz builds on this theory by asserting “One’s class gender and/or ethnicity shape [their] being, interactions and inhabitations in the world...” 

Aspiring revolutionaries “often present themselves as being critical, political and radical yet, in practice, and by what they produce, remain innocent, neutral or, merely well-intentioned.” People trying to design existences different from our status quo consistently give way to reform. I feel this is because we have not collectively nor individually interrogated our cognitive dissonance. We have not killed the cops, the state, the capitalist, the oppressor, the aspiring winner in our own heads. We have treated the means of allowing for the emergence of generative deviations from our trajectory of global, ecological collapse as somehow separate from the ends. Kehavarz continues: “...designers cannot simply engage in such complicated issues without a complex political understanding of their own position in terms of gender, class and ethnicity as well as how the contemporary orders of capital and the bodies serving those orders are organised by dispersed material articulations such as passports, camps, and borders, all configured by design.” Our failures to develop self awarness are the precursors to reform.

Part Two: “We Want to Do More Than Survive”: Self Examination

As Imani Scott-Blackwell penned so eloquently in a Facebook status about the 2020 Presidential election:

“While y’all mourn the results, I’ll continue grieving the fact that rather than using our resources, time, and talents to fortify local mutual aid networks that can sustain and protect us regardless of who the elected official are, we instead put that into elections, pamphlets, yard signs, social media tech company coffers, Halloween candy and snacks for the sake of “voter outreach”.

……

I’m really just confused like what are we actually doing.....what is it we actually want? Because impact > intent and we seem collectively committed to the wrong solutions and though I do see people that are critical of electoral politics few seem ready to talk about what we really need to do here.....divest from electoral politics all together.”

The amount of people encouraging other people to vote this year was historic. In my personal experiences, strangers with my private information texted and called me, knocked on my door, and hand wrote me letters urging me to engage in the spectacle of emergency voting. In meetings with grassroots and change-oriented organizations, people are doing land acknowledgments, and discussing indigenous sovereignty. These same meetings that begin with land acknowledgement often ended in encouraging attendees to vote. 

But, aren’t the state and its power inherently colonial? So how does a strategy that envisions freedom and/or sovereignty for black, incarcerated, indigenous, and/or undocumented people include actions that codify state hegemony?

The first type of cognitive dissonance that “hit me in the head” was W.E.B DuBois’ Double consciousness in high school; in an English class with the only black teacher. It applied so directly to my experiences as a working class black girl packaged and scholar-shipped into a wealthy, predominantly white private school with a college acceptance rate of 100%. I took so much pride in this despite constantly having to be “twice as good to get half as much”. I spent so much time explaining I tested into Detroit Country Day, that I wasn’t there because I was good at sports. I spent so much time laughing on the outside while crying on the inside at insensitive jokes and comments. I spent so much time embarrassed by being dropped off in my father’s rumbling work van. Upon understanding W.E.B DuBois’ theory I realized all that time was wasted. I made an instantaneous shift in my consciousness. Learning about my positionality disrupted how I speculated my future.

In becoming aware of my own cognitive dissonance I was able to immediately re-imagine myself off of the trajectory of becoming a black femme agent of white supremacy. I leaned into my queerness, I continued to wear my hair as it grew out of my head, I defended myself and others against racism, and became increasingly disinterested with seeking the approval of my white classmates. One might have seen a Condeleeza Rice as my future, but I became an unemployed, overworked, weed-smoking, mushroom tripping (okay, only like twice), hippie dippie black abolitionist, gay ass radical. I changed my belief system and praxis to incorporate what I was learning about myself in relationship to the structures that dominate our lives, and the trajectory of my life was disrupted.

Part Three: The Theory 

Again, can we who believe in freedom from US hegemony have a decolonial orientation while encouraging engagement in state infrastructures? Is channeling mass frustration with state violence into voting a decolonial framework? I ask, declaratively. Decolonization is a speculative disruption and a deviation from the trajectory laid out before us, requiring the abolition of the state. I believe this is an issue with speculative design - it’s failure to disrupt our thinking and how we might imagine life after now.

Professor Jamer Hunt at The New School once summarized a point by Arjun Appadurai from his piece “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy”: “We lean on sameness, really, to understand if we’re doing things right.” We do this in the most mundane of ways. If you got the same answer as me then I must have gotten it right! Right?... In her iconic work, “The Master’s Tools will Never Dismantle The Master’s House,” Audre Lorde teaches us difference is a practice of discovery. However, we respond to differences -not the status quo as difference within marginal contexts- as if it's a disruption. As a deviation in need of discipline. We then, sometimes, rely on our conceptions of hierarchy to determine “rightness”: young over old, literally any racial-ethnic identity over black, teacher over student, man over woman, etc.

Sameness can build a nation. Appadurai asserts a nation is a set of communities based on shared cultural values. In the US that culture is whiteness. That is the “nation” in the “nation-state” on Turtle Island. The dash is the “articulatory” piece. “Nation” and “state” were intentionally intertwined and can be separated and destroyed. 

The job of the “state” in “nation-state” is to spread itself. Colonization (direct and indirect) is what makes/made this possible; coloniality is what makes it enduring. After all, a state is simply a condition or what “is”, and white supremacy is what articulates and unifies this being. Therefore, one can only conclude that on turtle island, the “United” “States” is the product of spreading white supremacy in all shapes and fashions, enduringly. This has shaped identity, positionalities, and mobilities and thus speculative design(ers). Statist thinking is thwarting possibility and distorting it into limited likelihoods. This is a trap door to reform. This is where decolonization, returning land to the not only indigenous people, but indengous life--the commons--is transformed into a metaphor to live in infinite land acknowledgements and celebratory, meaningless court decisions. The endurance of the state’s illusory nature forces us to endure, feeling as though nothing will change nor end. Right? Nope, that’s not the answer I got.

In Design Politics: An Inquiry Into Passports, Camps and Borders the most fire book on design right now, Mahmoud Keshavarz asserts the non enduring nature of statehood: “The State is designed”. He says, “Refugee, settlers, displacement,” and I would add colonization and racism etc. is realized via statehood. Statehood will not be the liberating variable in these narratives as these positions are diametrically opposed to the ever demonstrating settler, colonial, capitalist, and violent interests of the nation-state.

Advocating for divestment from state infrastructures is unfamiliar, different, and possibly unsettling. Unsettling is our future state if there’s anything real behind your land acknowledgements. To summarize Yang and Tuck in Decolonization is Not a Metaphor: “What is unsettling about decolonization” is the literal unsettling. To “Unsettle” is to disrupt. As designers think about futures we must be aware of our standpoint, reorient, and think about what decolonization, anti-racism, undocumentedness, anti-capitalism, etc. wants - designing from this standpoint is where speculative disruption is born.

Part Four: Speculative Disruption

Speculative Disruption begins where reform ends. Speculation, unimaginatively, has become a practice of prediction. A space we’ve let our data-driven culture of determining likelihoods colonize (Lol, jk.) imagination in service of accuracy. We let our obsession with predicting outcomes, performing certainty, and being “right” be conflated with and distort possibility. 

There’s a saying circulating around radical communities: “abandon the capitalist, king, and the economy to govern an empty house”. Designers can materialize the future right now. “...Zoom out and start with new realities (ways of organizing everyday life through alternative beliefs, values, priorities, and ideology) then develop scenarios and possibly personas to bring it to life (173)”

This is deeper than designing what we “want”. Folks love to metaphorize colonization in the following phrases: “decolonizing our desires” or “decolonize our minds” though I think they mean our thoughts have been co-opted by the enduring nature of the nation-state and reinforcing of sameness and correctness. What we want is influenced by what we want to destroy as evidenced by the cognitive dissonance rampant through change making institutions. “VOTE!” But “Police are bad”, “So we have to vote for the people who vow to hire them!” [I’m not making this up]. Or immigrants or black people who defend their piece of the settler pie while feeling “it’s a shame what happened to the ‘natives’”.

My friend Sasha once said we need to organize to make things possible and impossible. This is the speculative and disruptive process of designing the unfamiliar -- the being that does not replace what we have and is not an evolution of the existing. The word unfamiliar comes from the Latin and Old English words for servant and family, respectively. Humans need to prepare for freer worlds that don’t currently serve our present ways of thinking and that are non-proximal to us. The designs for free worlds will come from the wants of the subaltern who have consciously refused to endure. We need to design the abolitionist mechanisms that will make a commons possible while making the empire impossible. 

Speculative disruption speculates the unsettling, the deviation from where we are headed and the orientation towards the directions in which we hope to journey. I ask declaratively: How can we learn to be okay with what is not familiar to us and how can we allow that which does not serve the current and dominant trajectory to inform what we create? How can we engage in a radically feminist practice of embracing uncertainty by acting without fear of consequences we are also uncertain of? 

[maswartz]

“

Last fall, a fellow disability activist and close friend of mine introduced me to Bernie Sanders.  From the moment I first heard his platform, I was hooked.  After living abroad several years in a country with socialized medicine and heavily subsidized education, I was thrilled an American politician was proposing these policies here.  Due to my own disabilities, the cost of healthcare has become exorbitant and becoming chronically ill forced me to leave my career in public service litigation to collect meager social security benefits.  So, Bernie’s message resonated strongly with my own personal experience of being in the 99%.

I was so moved by his message that I began volunteering for the campaign, be it through phonebanking, texting or simply bringing his message to everyone I knew.  I believed so strongly in the change he could effect that I even donated more money than I could otherwise afford to help his campaign succeed.  And I quickly became part of the Bernie or Bust movement, believing his campaign’s message that Clinton didn’t care about anyone other than her special interest donors.

____________________________________________________________

But I often struggled with his rhetoric on and lack of inclusion for people with disabilities in his stump speeches, acceptance speeches, debate performances, advertisements and campaign literature.  Despite discussing issues that affect our daily lives like healthcare, income inequality, social security and criminal justice, he almost never mentioned the disabled population, which makes up 20% of the American electorate.  He harped daily on how the Donald Trumps of the world try to divide us up based on our minority status but never even included disability as one of those dividing factors.

Meanwhile, I became more frustrated because Hillary Clinton was including us in every speech, ad campaign, debate performance and even intersectionality graphics of disabled people of color in her literature.  She issued press releases supporting the Disability Integration Act, which requires Obamacare plans to cover long-term care for people with disabilities, and talked about sub-minimum wage, a construct by which employers can legally pay the disabled less than minimum wage. Bernie either never did this or lagged behind, as if he was only doing it because Hillary was.  I sincerely felt as though Hillary was just paying lip service to us and that Bernie was simply uninformed.

So I began contacting the campaign as early as the fall to advise them on their disability outreach failures, as well as to communicate grave concerns the community was having with some on his policies. I tried every possible method of communication from emailing the campaign through the website and contacting them through social media, to direct emails and text messages to top political directors, including Jeff Weaver, BEGGING them to respond.  I also discovered that I was not the only disability activist experiencing this very frustration with the campaign.

_____________________________________________________________

After weeks of being ignored, the day after the New York elections, I sent one final message to the campaign saying that I was going to withdraw my support and advise the community to do the same if they didn’t care enough to even respond to our pleas for representation. Finally, his political director, Billy Gendell, a non-disabled male, responded by scheduling a phone call with me. I was finally hopeful once again, but what came next was personally devastating.  I began the conversation about the issues the community is having with his lack of rhetoric and lack of inclusion for people with disabilities, as I delineated in my emails.  I sincerely wanted to help the campaign improve.

However, he quickly interrupted me from giving them advice, despite knowing my credentials and insisted that I get to my policy questions.  But he asked that the answers remain “off-the-record” so that I could not share them with the community that was asking them.  His answers provided no new information or specific methods by which to initiate these broad ideas.  The only policy answer that wasn’t “off the record” was Bernie’s official statement on the opioid issue, sent to me via email. It said that chronic pain sufferers should seek yoga or guided meditation to ease our suffering.

I was shocked.  These recommendations are ones given to chronic pain sufferers by uneducated individuals with zero medical understanding of pain and the neurological system.  I immediately responded back to his email that he cannot expect an amputee with phantom pain to do yoga when in such dire pain that it causes his heart rate to soar and his blood pressure to plummet. I told him that it’s insulting to even insinuate such a thing. But, as, unfortunately, I expected, he never even replied, and I simply gave up trying to reach out.

____________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, none of his policies for people with disabilities changed, and he made little to no effort to include us in his speeches, other than to  occasionally discuss all disabled people in the context of social security, rather than his typical inclusion of only disabled veterans, as if only they matter because they became disabled at war.  (And I gave him credit on facebook for doing this once at the Washington square speech and emailed the campaign to thank them for it, which went unanswered) But he continued to fail to mention or depict us in any of his speeches or ads.

The feeling of devastating disappointment and betrayal sank in.  The thought of considering Clinton felt hypocritical of me.  I told myself, “How can I support someone who probably cares more about Wall Street than me?”  But I certainly couldn’t consider Donald Trump, who mocks disabled people and assumes we’re stupid enough to think that’s not what he was doing.  So, begrudgingly, I told a Hillary supporter with a disability that I was now considering supporting Hillary. He immediately introduced me via email to a blind Clinton staffer. Within literally minutes, she emailed me at 9 p.m. saying she would like to speak to me about the campaign. I was so encouraged by how quickly they responded, after the months I was ignored by Bernie.

She didn’t treat me like a nuisance like the Bernie campaign did but rather an asset.  She wanted to know my legal and advocacy opinion on disability policy.  She explained in detail how Hillary planned to initiate change for us with sophisticated, legal political strategy.  And, then she asked me to come on board and help the campaign best meet the needs of the disability community through, inter alia, writing for the campaign after they were able to officially vet my credentials.  (Which has not yet occurred, and I, in no way, am writing this on behalf of the campaign) I soon realized that the Clinton campaign didn’t just care about the disability community; they hired us and treated us like the intelligent people we are.

_____________________________________________________________

My conversation with the Clinton campaign regained my hopefulness but also made me incensed that Bernie is maliciously lying to democrats about Clinton’s uncaring regard for the 99%, while destroying the party from within.  Bernie is adamant that Hillary only cares about corporate interests and not the typical marginalized American.  But, in fact, the opposite is true.  If he cared about his supporters’ interests, his campaign would respond to these communities, listen to their issues and modify his platform accordingly.

His speeches never change for a reason. It isn’t because, as his supporters allege, he’s authentic and always on the right side of things. It’s because he doesn’t care to adapt, to research issues other than income inequality and the environment, follow up on his lofty ideas with solid policy initiatives or to make any compromises to achieve his goals. Rather, he just plays the blame game, pointing out everything that’s wrong with this country and proposing no specific plans to achieve his goals.  He prides himself on being so honest and trustworthy while lying to the electorate about his concern for our well being and Hillary’s lack thereof.  In reality, I see now that he doesn’t care about anyone’s well being but his own ability to rise to power.

What’s worse is that he is riling up his base to believe that the system is rigged, corrupt and rife with election fraud, based on theories grounded in conspiracy rather than fact. He’s excusing their violence and death threats on constituents’ frustration, rather than explicitly denouncing such vile behavior.  The superdelegates are voting for Hillary, and some are starting to shift support from Bernie to Hillary, which I suspect will continue to occur, because they are experienced policy makers who recognize that Bernie has proposed no actual comprehensive policies to achieve his goals.  They realize that, in the year he’s been running for President, he hasn’t created one single concrete plan. Superdelegates are in place to prevent dangerous politicians, like Trump, from achieving power when they don’t have the capabilities to effectively use that power and, thus, make things much worse in the end.

Coming to terms with these realizations was very difficult for me.  I literally grieved and cried when I discovered that I had been so maliciously misled by someone I believed to possess such a high moral compass.  I recognize that his supporters are frustrated and angry over income inequality, because I am too.  But I plea with his supporters to wake up to HIS fraud and ask yourselves why he answers every question on every topic, from ISIL to our broken public school systems, with concepts of income inequality.  It’s not because that issue is the root of all things wrong with our country but because he doesn’t care to research and be advised on any other issues, despite having the time and resources to do so.

Those of you who are Bernie or Bust, like I was, please, I beg of you, consider my personal experience.  Google me.  Find me on Facebook and Twitter.  See for yourselves that I was Bernie or Bust, that I’m not some Wall Street attorney rolling in money.  I am a disabled woman, struggling to make ends meet and to pay my medical bills.  But I now recognize that Clinton is the only candidate willing to make the effort to effect the change we need.  We cannot afford Trump or Bernie in the White House. They will only be given enough power to destroy what fragment of the American Dream we have left.

(For those who seem hell-bent on believing that my having lived in Israel somehow makes me biased: Bernie also lived there, I dislike the right-wing government there, and I continued my support for him after he criticized Israel in NY)

@barker_ariella

Ariella Barker, Esq.

Ariella has a BBA and JD from Emory University. For many years, she represented the City of NY and Mayor Michael Bloomberg in employment discrimination and labor law claims. She currently sits on the Council for Disability Rights for the Mayor’s Office of the City of Mooresville, NC and works as a disability advocate since being crowned Ms. Wheelchair NC 2014.

“

[xtruss]

We Won The Argument, But I Regret We Didn’t Convert That Into A Majority For Change — Jeremy Corbyn

We must now ensure that the working class, in all its diversity, is the driving force within our party

Jeremy Corbyn near his London home on Saturday.

We are living in highly volatile times. Two-and-a-half years ago, in the first general election I contested as Labour leader, our party increased its share of the popular vote by 10 percentage points. On Thursday, on a desperately disappointing night, we fell back eight points.

I have called for a period of reflection in the party, and there is no shortage of things to consider. I don’t believe these two contrasting election results can be understood in isolation.

The last few years have seen a series of political upheavals: the Scottish independence campaign, Labour’s transformation, Brexit, the Labour electoral surge, and now Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” victory. None of that is a coincidence.

The political system is volatile because it is failing to generate stable support for the status quo following the financial crash of 2008. As Labour leader I’ve made a point of travelling to all parts of our country and listening to people, and I’ve been continually struck how far trust has broken down in politics.

The gap between the richest and the rest has widened. Everyone can see that the economic and political system is not fair, does not deliver justice, and is stacked against the majority.

That has provided an opening for a more radical and hopeful politics that insists it doesn’t have to be like this, and that another world is possible. But it has also fuelled cynicism among many people who know things aren’t working for them, but don’t believe that can change.

I saw that most clearly in the former industrial areas of England and Wales where the wilful destruction of jobs and communities over 40 years has taken a heavy toll. It is no wonder that these areas provided the strongest backlash in the 2016 referendum and, regrettably for Labour, in the general election on Thursday.

In towns where the steelworks have closed, politics as a whole wasn’t trusted, but Boris Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done” – sold as a blow to the system – was. Sadly that slogan will soon be exposed for the falsehood it is, shattering trust even further.

Despite our best efforts, and our attempts to make clear this would be a turning point for the whole direction of our country, the election became mainly about Brexit.

A Conservative party prepared to exploit divisions capitalised on the frustration created by its own failure to deliver on the referendum result – to the cost of a Labour party seeking to bring our country together to face the future.

The polarisation in the country over Brexit made it more difficult for a party with strong electoral support on both sides. I believe we paid a price for being seen by some as trying to straddle that divide or re-run the referendum.

Jeremy Corbyn leaves the Labour party’s headquarters in the early hours of Friday morning.

We now need to listen to the voices of those in Stoke and Scunthorpe, Blyth and Bridgend, Grimsby and Glasgow, who didn’t support Labour. Our country has fundamentally changed since the financial crash and any political project that pretends otherwise is an indulgence.

Progress does not come in a simple straight line. Even though we lost seats heavily on Thursday, I believe the manifesto of 2019 and the movement behind it will be seen as historically important – a real attempt at building a force powerful enough to transform society for the many, not the few. For the first time in decades, many people have had hope for a better future.

That experience, shared by hundreds of thousands of people, cannot be erased. Our task as a movement, and a party that has more than doubled in size, is not over: it now has the urgent task of defending the communities that will come under sustained assault from Boris Johnson’s government and the toxic deal he wants with Donald Trump.

And it must set about ensuring that sense of hope spreads and deepens. As socialists we seek to raise people’s expectations. People in our country deserve so much more – and they can have it, if we work together to achieve it.

I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and on the climate emergency we have won the arguments and rewritten the terms of political debate. But I regret that we did not succeed in converting that into a parliamentary majority for change.

There is no doubt that our policies are popular, from public ownership of rail and key utilities to a massive house-building programme and a pay rise for millions. The question is, how can we succeed in future where we didn’t this time?

There is no quick fix to overcome the distrust of many voters. Patronising them will not win them over. Labour has to earn their trust. That means the patient work of listening and standing with communities, especially as the government steps up its assault. And it means ensuring that the working class, in all its diversity, is the driving force within our party.

The media attacks on the Labour party for the last four and a half years were more ferocious than ever – and of course that has an impact on the outcome of elections. Anyone who stands up for real change will be met by the full force of media opposition.

The party needs a more robust strategy to meet this billionaire-owned and influenced hostility head-on and, where possible, turn it to our advantage.

We have suffered a heavy defeat, and I take my responsibility for it. Labour will soon have a new leader. But whoever that will be, our movement will continue to work for a more equal and just society, and a sustainable and peaceful world.

I’ve spent my life campaigning for those goals, and will continue to do so. The politics of hope must prevail.

— Guardian USA

[southeastasianists]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has confirmed that he killed three men during his time as mayor of Davao city, despite officials trying to downplay an earlier admission. Duterte’s comments might yet hurt his popularity but that seems unlikely.

Duterte’s national crusade has resulted in an alarming daily average of 34 drug war-related murders. Despite this death toll and international condemnation, public satisfaction with his anti-drug war is at a significantly high rate of 78%.

How can this be explained in a country that a mere 30 years ago brought down a dictator without resorting to violence? How could a nation that inspired the world with its peaceful “People Power” revolution now welcome a return to the state-sanctioned murders of the martial-law era of 1972-1981?

Duterte’s rise is an evolving lesson in the vulnerability of democracies in the face of a neglected public. The democratic institutions of the Philippines have little power when faced with a populist president determined to channel frustrations into immediate actions.

Unfulfilled promise

In 1986, millions of Filipinos ended Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship through sustained civil resistance against government violence and electoral fraud. This culminated in a massive peaceful protest in the capital along Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA). The event is now popularly known as the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.

Marcos was ousted after 21 years in power. He had been democratically elected as president in 1965, but essentially ruled as a dictator from 1972 to 1986.

To the disappointment of many, an elite-dominated democracy replaced Marcos’ authoritarian rule. From 1987, a small number of families started to restore their control of the government and rotate the seats of power among themselves. They included the Marcos family, who returned from exile in 1991 and were welcomed by their allies.

In the public imagination, the promises of the People Power Revolution went beyond restoring democratic institutions. The narrative went like this: a return to democracy would secure prosperity and security for everyone. The overall framework and various social justice provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution clearly reflect this.

But three decades later, the post-EDSA pact is far from being fulfilled.

A neglected public

The post-EDSA leadership has failed to solve many of the problems that concern Filipinos. Despite promising national growth rates, the gains appear to have largely benefited the rich. More than 26 million Filipinos remain impoverished. And unemployment rates are said to be the worst in Asia.

This widening gap between rich and poor, recurrent domestic economic crises, epidemic levels of corruption and failed attempts to significantly reduce criminality, have left the public deeply frustrated. Surveys in recent decades have consistently shown that these are the most urgent national concerns for many Filipinos.

The 1986 revolution, once a symbol of the promise of democracy and prosperity, is now synonymous in the Filipino popular imagination with the dysfunctional transport system in Metro Manila.

National commemorations of the EDSA consensus have become officially important, but in the public imagination they tell the tale of how promises are meant to be broken.

Democracy’s discontent

Amid political and economic exclusion and malaise came Duterte. He offered empathy to the economic strugglers and protection from the violence of criminals and politicians. His was a twin campaign narrative of care and power. His supporters often highlighted how they felt that Duterte truly cared for them.

And he was not just all talk. Duterte is seen as a man of action: decisive and quick. His “authenticity” is manifest in his everyday language coupled with humour that comes from the streets.

Duterte articulated the public’s deep-seated feelings of precariousness and powerlessness using rhetoric they could relate to. His campaign rallies, which many proclaimed as a marvel to behold, showed the rapport between the candidate and his supporters.

Many felt that Duterte rose from the ranks of ordinary citizens despite coming from a traditional political family and holding various political offices for 30 years. This is especially evident in his overwhelming support in the southern Philippines, as the first president from a region long neglected by the capital.

How did it come to this?

When democracy doesn’t deliver, its legitimacy becomes difficult to defend. And when successive elite-dominated governments have used democracy for their own ends, the balance tilts towards authoritarianism.

Under post-EDSA democracy the richest families amassed more wealth than ever while poverty, hunger, homelessness, and crime continued to afflict ordinary Filipinos. It’s not difficult to imagine why some are nostalgic for the authoritarian past. Although national statistics show otherwise, people felt those were the country’s golden years.

Extrajudicial killings are a regular feature of post-EDSA governments as they were of the martial law years. Examples include the 1987 Mendiola massacre, 2004 Hacienda Luisita massacre and 2009 Maguindanao massacre, to name a few.

Perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Even before Duterte, the Philippines was known as the country with the worst state of impunity. Government critics were the usual victims until Duterte took aim at alleged drug dealers and users.

In my fieldwork in a massive poor urban community in Quezon City, residents have welcomed Duterte’s war on drugs. They now feel more secure in what they call their “drug-infested community” even though drug use has substantially declined compared to previous decades, according to one village official.

Residents argue that their perceptions of community security are just as important as the numbers in government records. For people to feel safe in a city where 92% of villages face drug-related crimes and in a nation where crimes against persons and property are rising is no easy thing.

When Duterte’s campaign translates to perceived everyday safety, it is no wonder that drug-war murders have not met considerable resistance.

Anyone with experience of the country’s institutions of justice knows how elusive criminal justice is. Around 80% of drug cases end up being dismissed and it may take a decade to achieve a conviction.

There are many reasons for this, but Duterte’s narrative that drug lords are so powerful that they can influence even the judiciary is not far-fetched. Most people do not trust the judiciary and many are convinced that power and money are needed to claim justice.

Previous administrations also made a mockery out of the national justice system; even convicted corrupt politicians enjoy their freedom while innocents languish in jail. A corruption whistleblower, Jun Lozada, was recently convicted, while ex-president Gloria Arroyo was acquitted and set free.

The legislature has been used to turn issues of justice into a public circus, such as in the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Corona and the hearings on allegations of graft and corruption against former vice president Jejomar Binay.

Is it surprising then that Dutarte’s supporters find calls to follow the rule of law and due process hypocritical? When institutions do not work, it becomes unreasonable to rely on them.

Duterte’s narrative plays on the temptations for a disgruntled public to claim swift justice. In the context of his rise to power, it’s no surprise that calls to respect human rights or the rule of law fall on deaf ears.

The election of Duterte may be seen as the nadir, but possibly also a turning point, in the long-standing democratic deficit in Asia’s oldest democracy. His rejection of the rule of law and liberal democracy represents a rupture in the post-EDSA consensus.

It’s not a stretch to say that the Philippines’ elite democracy had it coming. The failure to deliver on the promises of the People Power revolution made the rise of Duterte politically possible.

[raptured-night]

Good lord, the comprehension levels and ability to factually articulate one’s stance sans ad hominem and rhetorical fallacy in that “debate” were so starkly unbalanced it was cringe-worthy. Not that it wasn’t also somewhat comedic. 

It’s just, the uni-professor in me kept wincing each time they moved the goal-post, accused you of poor reading comprehension (whilst overlooking and/or failing to address your points to the extent that you had to reiterate them multiple times before they would clumsily acknowledge them) and the general air of undeserved condescension and pseudo-intellectual superiority. It’s always astounding to me, the general cognitive dissonance it requires to so unironically try to “debate” with someone in such an awkward way and not recognize it. I snorted at the end though when they tried to adopt the tone of the mythologized, wizened old mentor who tried and failed to impart the knowledge of the ages to the indifferent ears of their wayward, youthful protege. 

Mostly, I think you managed to convey the relative failures of the EC as it stands now and the necessity of a fairer electoral system that wouldn’t disproportionately advantage one party-system over the other. I firmly believe that you cannot claim to be “a patriot of American democracy” if you do not want to strive for an election system that allows for representation of the people (regardless of whether those people’s political views align with your own or not). In my own state, there was a point when the gerrymandering disproportionately favored the left and I was against it back then, despite my own political views falling most closely under that general umbrella, I remain against it now that the district lines have been heavily re-drawn to favor the right (to the point we’ve had the higher courts rule our state’s gerrymandering as a major issue where it was clearly designed to discriminate against Black voters). 

Whether the candidates I want to see elected win or lose isn’t the heart of the issue here, it’s the fact that the EC is an inefficient and out-dated system that does often lead to disenfranchisement in many different ways (not even getting into campaign finance issues post-Citizens Unites). It’s only one of the problems that contributes to voter-apathy (when you believe your vote doesn’t matter, why bother) and the general sense of frustration you’re seeing today. Much of the divide we see now and the partisan politics can partly be attributed to a general lack of accountability of representatives to their constituents. Politicians don’t feel the need to listen to or address the issues of a portion of the people they represent. Indeed, some may actively avoid veering away from the ideological and partisan talking points of “their party” to the point we now have politicians openly belittling the people they represent who have different political views because to do anything else could cost them the votes they depend on from the people “on their side.” 

There is no room for discourse, debate, or compromise because our electoral system as it only makes politicians accountable to their party and not the people as a whole, so you have echo chambers on both sides. No party can afford to break ranks, not when the stakes are so high and the only way to be elected is by appealing to the percentage of people (and lobbyists) who will vote for them on the basis of party. By removing the EC we essentially open our electoral system up to an expanded sense of accountability where more than the people “on your team” matter when it comes to getting the votes, suddenly you have to be more open to civil conversation, debate, and compromise if you want to motivate enough people to consider voting for you versus your opponent (i.e. the extreme pressure we’re seeing for politicians to “perform” for votes by appealing to the voters from the far side of their parties in recent years is detrimental in many ways to our political process, as you have candidates who run not so much on a platform of issues as they do on more generalized partisan-based play-acting intended to appeal to the people (and lobbyist) most likely to rally around them). 

Remove the problems the EC currently presents and politicians may actually have to start campaigning on a platform again, beyond just, “Whelp, I’m not my opponent. Now, go vote for me if you don’t want them calling the shots.” I’m all for election reform, even when it doesn’t advantage my personal ideological and partisan views, because I believe in a democratic system that truly represents the greater majority voice of the people and holds our politicians to more accountability. I want an election system that forces our politicians to actually stop performing politics just so that the party they’re appealing to will vote them in and subsequently allow them carte blanche to push through bills and policies that continue to advantage them while shamelessly allowing themselves to be lobbied against policies that wouldn’t by corporations and a small majority of wealthy Americans. I want my vote to carry weight and I want even the politicians on “my side” of the political spectrum to recognize that if they fail to represent me as they claimed, live up to their campaign promises, etc., then I have the influence via my vote to hold them accountable for it. I don’t want bad politicians to be protected by lobbyists or a small majority, by gerrymandered states, or by an electoral college system that keeps them in office even when the majority and popular vote would have them pushed out. I want my politicians (my party or otherwise) to feel the pressure and power of the people. 

Maps matter. Map 1 over-represents territory. Map 2 is weighted by where people live … 

[gyrlversion]

In some states, GOP sees the recall as its way back to power

DENVER (AP) — Republicans frustrated by losing their grip on political power in some Western states have begun deploying a new weapon: the recall.

Once reserved for targeting corrupt or inept elected officials, the recall has become part of the toolkit for Republicans seeking a do-over of election results. One GOP strategist in Colorado has put a name to it — “recall season.”

To be sure, Democrats also have used recalls, most notably in Wisconsin, where they tried unsuccessfully to oust then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2012 over his actions to weaken public sector unions.

But Republicans have been mounting recall efforts against Democratic state lawmakers and governors at an unprecedented rate over the past two years in a handful of Western states, at the same time their political fortunes in those states have been declining.

In 2018, they recalled a freshman state senator in California as a way to temporarily undo a Democratic supermajority.

The same year in Nevada, two Democratic lawmakers and an allied independent fended off recall attempts.

In Oregon, Republicans are pursuing a recall of Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who was re-elected last year, after GOP lawmakers walked out of the Senate to try to block votes on climate change and education bills.

Colorado, where Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office, is seeing its highest level of recall activity since 2013, when two Democratic lawmakers lost their seats for supporting gun control legislation and a third facing recall resigned.

Recall campaigns are targeting Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, two Democratic state House members and two Democrats in the state Senate. Recall committees have been formed for other lawmakers, and the GOP’s top-ranking officials have encouraged the efforts.

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, newly elected as chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, told supporters earlier this year, “We need to teach them how to spell R-E-C-A-L-L.”

Colorado recall proponents accused their targets of overreach on issues of gun control, climate change, taxes, sex education and the electoral college — issues that many of the Democrats ran on during their successful campaigns.

Karen Kateline, a talk show host working on the Polis effort, insists that she and other Republicans aren’t abusing the original misconduct intent for recalls.

“Nobody is putting the brakes on these people,” she said of Democrats.

“It’s our constitutional right to recall,” insisted Nancy Pallozzi, a Republican from the Denver suburb of Lakewood, who is leading an effort against state Sen. Brittany Pettersen. “We can’t wait for new (GOP) candidates to be vetted for the next election. Three more years for the governor? And three more years for Brittany? No.”

Democrats see the recalls as a blatant attempt to undo the results of the most recent elections, which produced a Democratic wave in several Western states.

Matt Harringer, spokesman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, has a simple label for the Republicans pursuing the recall attempts — “sore losers.” The committee, which gets involved in state legislative races, has dedicated $135,000 to help fight the Colorado recall attempts.

“Republicans are definitely on the decline in the West, and Colorado is the leader of that,” Harringer said. “We don’t think there’s a huge appetite to recall legislators who are doing what they said they would do.”

Nevertheless, Republicans see it as a worthy strategy. The Colorado Republican Party started months ago offering training sessions for what GOP consultant Ben Engen calls “recall season.”

Proponents can use the process to time an election and shape the electorate on their own terms, when most voters aren’t paying attention, said Engen, a Denver-based consultant who conducted some of those sessions.

For example, a petition drive can be timed to produce a special recall election during the winter holidays — taking advantage of lower turnout by unaffiliated voters who have helped turn Colorado, once a swing state, into Democratic-leaning territory, Engen said in an interview.

“There’s a drop-off in turnout from presidential to midterm elections, and the same thing between midterms and off-year elections,” Engen said. “Initiators of a recall can use the timing to maximize that enthusiasm gap.”

To Democrats, that’s essentially an admission that Republicans are using the recall not as a vehicle to oust corrupt officials, but rather as an attempt to game the system and flip seats they otherwise could not win in a regular election.

“The strategists see that a recall may be the best chance of winnowing down the electorate in such a way as to sneak through a seat,” agreed Jason Bane, a Denver-based Democratic operative. “They need something that goes under the radar for it to work.”

In 2018, California Democratic Sen. Josh Newman lost his seat in a recall election, ending Democrats’ supermajority. Recall proponents’ stated reason for the recall was Newman’s support for a gas tax increase, although he was one of dozens of lawmakers in both legislative houses to vote for it. Ironically, California voters reaffirmed the gas tax increase, which is now in effect, just months after voters recalled Newman in a lower-turnout primary.

“What made me a target of the recall wasn’t my vote per se, but was the opportunity to instead redo an election just months earlier, and on more favorable terms,” said Newman, who plans to run for his old seat in 2020, when turnout will be far higher.

Previous success, as in California and Colorado, has emboldened Republicans to keep trying.

In Nevada, a group of conservatives say they’re preparing a recall effort against first-term Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, who signed a law, passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature, adding restrictions to the recall process.

Oregon Republican Party Chairman Bill Currier filed paperwork to recall Brown based on what he called the governor’s failure to honor the will of the voters and her “politically-motivated agendas.” Currier did not return multiple inquiries seeking elaboration.

KC Hanson, chairwoman of the Oregon Democratic Party, called the recall effort a political stunt meant to undermine the results of the November 2018 election, which also gave Democrats a legislative supermajority.

“The GOP is embracing inflammatory rhetoric and pursuing a fool’s errand by trying to recall a governor that voters re-elected by a wide margin less than a year ago,” she said. ”“Clearly, the GOP is scared of what’s on the horizon for 2020.”

Recalls were first staged in a handful of states in the early 20th century, an era of progressive political reforms, to remove public officials for corruption or ineptitude. Today, 19 states allow statewide recalls, 11 of them for any reason.

Until recent years, they have rarely been used as a political tactic to flip legislative seats or target governors over policy disagreements, said Jason Spivak, who tracks recalls nationwide and is a senior fellow at Wagner College in New York.

“Voters in general see this as not playing by the rules,” he said.

New Mexico is among the majority of states that does not have the recall. This year, a Republican state lawmaker sought to change that.

Rep. Bill Rehm insists the intent of his proposal was to honor the standard that recalls should be reserved for performance in office, not politics.

“I don’t want it used as a political tool. And I don’t want the public to use it as a threat,” he said. “The public should have a way to get rid of me if I’m not performing.”

The Democrats who control the New Mexico legislature were not persuaded. Rehm’s bill did not get a hearing.

___

Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Michelle Price in Las Vegas and Sarah Zimmerman in Salem, Oregon, contributed to this report.

___

Follow James Anderson at https://twitter.com/jandersonAP

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[gordonc63240600-blog]

Puzzled As well as Money Supermarket.

This information outlines the generally allowed framework for introductions, body system paragraphs, as well as final thoughts in a scholarly disagreement newspaper. For those following an adventure trip, every automobile is ready to go as soon as you get in. For those who yearn for a harder, extra practical owning adventure, there is actually a crazy quantity from customisation, straight up to the tire tension. Volvo indicated United States federal government analysis predicting that self-driving autos will bring about an 80% join the variety of auto accident by 2035. Our team operated this for over half a hr in one new-ish lorry with a good battery without complications in any way. An alert body to inform you to pause throughout a long ride happens as regular, as carries out a security management system that assists you regulate the car if this skids. 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Kaspar at some point discovered at yet another dealership that the cars and truck he desired wasn't accessible on the East Shore. And also companies could discover transgressions: A lot of cars in today times have GPS units that rental companies use to track cars, regardless if you use all of them for navigation. Hennessey likewise states the vehicle could possibly surpass its recorded 270.49 mph top speed if there was actually a much longer extent from road, as the When this ran out from runway, vehicle continued accelerating. Vehicle glass complications often provide on their own as little, just to escalate a bit later on. This sort of monitor has actually ended up being a baseline standard for several phone-makers, and with good explanation. That's an excellent dimension for pretty much anything, off reviewing posts to enjoying and participating in video games Netflix, without the wallet bulge of a 5.5-inch show like the Moto G4's. This also makes use of video cameras, sensing units and also radar to steer the car as well as stop it off hitting just about anything else when traveling. The Republican prospect took Michigan, home to the auto show and also still the business's center, off the Democrats for the first time given that 1988 with a project that tore right into firms that have actually sent out those electors' projects abroad, especially to Mexico Ford bore the burden from Trump's strikes during the course of the election. I am actually a supporter from the renovating metaphor, and also Fielding flourished along with the allegories here; sound establishment, really good bones: a wonderful structure for a house as well as a connection. Good job, also, as the Nissan/Renault CEO was in generally dealing with spirit, later grinding an additional reporter's rather gullible inquiry right into the positions. James Bond glued his condition as the 1960s' renowned character within this box office knockout, which additionally featured the car which lots of movie and also vehicle fanatics as well experience is actually optimum vehicle ever before revealed to synthetic. While I wasn't directly encouraged in order to get unnecessary repairs, the manager's breakdown to suggest me of the threats on a long journey after an examination of my aged vehicle led me to get unneeded repairs to have the vacation, which triggered my automobile's malfunction. People buy cars and trucks to own them - if you take away the love of being at the wheel then you could at the same time make use of Uber.

[politicalfilth-blog]

UK General Election: Did The Globalists Win?

We Are Change

The UK 2017 General Election has resulted in a hung Parliament with the Conservatives winning 318 seats and Labour 261. Since no party managed to win the necessary 326 seats to make a majority on their own, the options are to either form a coalition to create a majority or operate as a minority government.

The key number of seats to achieve is 326, if a party gets there then they will be able to form a majority government.

The result has been seen as a failure for the Conservatives since in the 2015 General Election the Tories won 331 seats, comfortably beating Labour’s 232. Speaking after visiting Buckingham Palace, Theresa May said only her party had the “legitimacy” to govern, despite falling eight seats short of a majority.

In 2010, no one party managed to win the necessary 326 seats, there was a hung parliament, so the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition.

Jeremy Corbyn has hailed Labour’s “incredible result” and has called for May to resign. The Liberal Democrats’ Tim Farron also called on May to quit. The Scottish National Party or SNP will work with others to keep the “reckless” Tories out “if at all possible”.

Theresa May’s government will carry on Brexit negotiations to the existing timetable.

Who Are The DUP?

The Tories are forming a coalition government with the controversial Democratic Unionist Party or DUP, to “provide certainty” and keep the country “safe”.

The Democratic Unionist Party are a socially conservative party in Northern Ireland. They’re anti-abortion and also oppose same-sex marriage. They have a history of climate change denial and in 2011 five of their MPs called for the return of the death penalty. They are also Theresa May’s only option to retain power.

DUP are natural bedfellows of the Conservative party. Britain backed loyalist terrorist groups supported by the DUP in the North of Ireland. pic.twitter.com/AAcsyTZeBY

— Crimes of Britain (@crimesofbrits) June 9, 2017

Almost 300,000 people have signed a petition against the Tory-DUP deal in just 12 hours.

Are The DUP Connected To Saudi Arabia?

It appears that the DUP are connected to Saudi Arabia and have, in the past, received a donation of £425,622. The DUP used some of this money to produce a four-page glossy propaganda supplement urging readers to vote Leave in the Brexit referendum. The supplement cost a staggering £282,000.

A party with close links to Saudi-ISIS also.https://t.co/ZRTVbD8uDq

— Revolution? (@Revolution_IRL) June 9, 2017

Celestine, a popular geopolitical analyst, didn’t seem at all surprised by the coalition.

British State is probably the largest terrorist organisation in the world so a collusion w/ terrorist supporting groups isn't that shocking

— Celestine (@CelestineBee) June 9, 2017

The Occupied North of Ireland

An interesting and important development is that ‘Northern Ireland’ as a term has been thrown back into the spot light…

The term 'Northern Ireland' is becoming normalised. There's only one Ireland with 6 of its counties still being deemed as British property

— Celestine (@CelestineBee) June 9, 2017

…and a general reminder of how Britain colonised other countries.

Condemn the DUP all day & rightfully so but don't act like they're not the symptom of the British Governments colonialism in Ireland

— Celestine (@CelestineBee) June 9, 2017

Problem Reaction Solution

It has been a difficult time for the people of the UK who have had three terrorist attacks in quick succession in the run up to the election.

pic.twitter.com/0bHjIr8bHp

— Anonymous (@Anon_Emy) June 8, 2017

This has made people frightened. The Conservative mantra was “Strong And Stable”.

He never votes but due to these recent terror attacks in the UK, the mainstream media convinced him Theresa May will keep us safe & secure.

— Lex Loopington (@lex_looper) June 8, 2017

May’s calls to regulate the internet in response to the terrorist attacks have not been popular.

It would be hysterical if Corbyn won and Theresa May was out, if only to highlight how retarded she is on net regulation and campaigning.

— Styxhexenhammer666 (@Styx666Official) June 9, 2017

How Do Americans View  The UK Election

Photos and videos like this are all over the internet showing the apparent replacement of the native population. This has caused alarm in some people in both the UK and in America. For many in the UK this just isn’t their everyday reality, depending on location.

This picture wasn't taken in Islamabad but in Trafalgar Square, London. The politicians have conspired to replace Europeans with immigrants. pic.twitter.com/0nWOwR95cK

— Mark Collett (@MarkACollett) June 9, 2017

Voting is a difficult decision and its frustrating that there is no ‘perfect’ party.

/pol/ expressed concern for the UK in this tweet which hit us right in the feels.

MASSIVE WIN AGAINST THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Large servings of humble pie are being consumed all over the UK today. Nowhere more so than by the members of the media. Owen Jones who writes for the Guardian, like many other journalists, were forced to eat their words.

Jack Xatzinikolas, a popular British writer, journalist and activist who has campaigned over poverty issues, particularly hunger relief and has published a blog and several books of “austerity recipes“, made this humble tweet.

My sincerest congratulations to @jeremycorbyn – I misjudged you, I underestimated you, and I greatly look forward to working with you.

— Jack Xatzinikolas (@MxJackMonroe) June 9, 2017

Marcus Brigstocke the English comedian, actor and satirist also apologised.

I didn't think Corbyn's team could deliver this. I was wrong. I apologise to those I dismissed. Sorry. I am devouring humble pie gratefuly.

— Marcoooos! (@marcusbrig) June 9, 2017

Bernie Sanders understands that the people of the UK will only tolerate a government that won’t invest in public services for so long. People saw the destruction of the NHS and went to vote.

Styx, the popular geopolitical analyst, gave his opinion of the two candidates.

Prime Minister Theresa May is a deluded wannabe thatcher and her opponent is a Krugman-looking socialist cretin.

— Styxhexenhammer666 (@Styx666Official) June 4, 2017

Did the American Think British Nationalism Featured In The Election?

Unrepresented some felt:

What Happened To Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party?

UKIP is a Eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party. On July 4 2016, Farage announced his resignation as leader of UKIP, triggering a leadership election. Eventually Paul Nuttall succeeded Farage but resigned after the election since UKIP won no seats this time.

This update just in!

It is thought that Brits living in the South do not take Nigel Farage very seriously and he is not well liked or respected but thought of more favourably by those living in the North of the country. The fact that Trump endorsed Farage holds little weight with some, since the MSM convinced them Trump is sexist and racist. Farage is also believed to be fully racist, by some at least.

In 2015, UKIP won 3.8 million votes and had only one elected MP in the House of Commons. However  the party came second in 120 constituencies. Advocates for electoral reform said, at the time, that the outcome exposed the limitations of the first-past-the-post system, prompting urgent calls for a change to the way Britain votes.

Britain has not implemented proportional representation yet.

Styx has voiced support for UKIP.

Who knows, if the UK public think the new government isn’t taking Brexit seriously, perhaps Farage will gain some support. Farage gaining support, at some point in time, certainly can’t be ruled out.

People seem to think Farage is the only politician who dislikes the EU. Corbyn also attacked the European Union.

Corbyn has never liked the EU that's something remainers fail to grasp pic.twitter.com/PD266mLqzq

— Freedom ?? (@KnightsWhoGoNi) June 9, 2017

Check out this old video of Corbyn calling out the EU!

pic.twitter.com/lE5T85CaT5

— Freedom ?? (@KnightsWhoGoNi) June 9, 2017

Let us know what you think in the comments. Would you vote for Nigel Farage?

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[newstfionline]

In France’s Poor Suburbs, Angry Voters May Skip Big Election

By Alissa J. Rubin and Lilia Blaise, NY Times, April 30, 2017

STAINS, France--For voters in the poorer, largely immigrant suburbs of Paris, the motivation to turn out for France’s presidential runoff seems clear: to defeat Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of the National Front, who has pitched her campaign against immigrants and Muslims.

The other candidate, the centrist Emmanuel Macron, would seem to be an easy alternative. But the reality of this election cycle in towns like Stains, where public frustration is high over the failure of politicians to deliver on past promises, is that many voters may simply choose to stay home on May 7 for the critical, final vote.

“Don’t count on the working-class neighborhoods this year to save France,” said Inès Seddiki, a 26-year-old French Muslim in Stains, whose parents came from Morocco.

Although Ms. Seddiki said she would vote reluctantly for Mr. Macron, she feared she was an exception: “White people who say ‘You have to vote against Marine Le Pen because you will lose more than we will’ don’t realize that for us, we already live in a racist country.”

In the first round of the presidential election on April 23, voters in many poorer Parisian suburbs did turn out, but for the fiery candidate on the extreme left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who channeled the anger of communities neglected by the political system. And many also chose not to vote. That second option--not voting--is now a real possibility in the final round for those who previously voted for Mr. Mélenchon, even though they arguably have the most at stake.

Just how many voters abstain could determine whether Ms. Le Pen can upend expectations and beat Mr. Macron. The prevailing assumption is that a broad majority of voters--a so-called Republican Front that includes the poorer suburbs--will come together behind Mr. Macron in the name of turning back Ms. Le Pen and the far right. But a low turnout could threaten this belief and help Ms. Le Pen.

In France’s poor suburbs, many French are of Arab extraction with parents or grandparents who came from Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia. Many are also from sub-Saharan Africa; the former French colonies of Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal and Togo; and what was once French Indochina, today’s Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. For them, neither the right nor the left has delivered when it comes to making jobs more available and reducing discrimination.

Recent terrorist attacks have worsened the stigma attached to immigrants and Muslims. A number of the house searches after the terror attacks in and around Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, were conducted by police in Seine-St.-Denis, the political jurisdiction that includes Stains.

“The second round is a catastrophe,” said Cheker Messaoudi, 29, a Frenchman of Tunisian heritage. “I think with Macron we are facing a war on the economy and with Le Pen we are facing a civil war, so it is bad both ways.”

With an abstention rate of 38 percent including blank ballots in contrast to 23.5 percent nationwide in the first round of the presidential election, Stains reflects a particularly high degree of disillusionment. A community of about 38,000 inhabitants on the outskirts of Paris, it voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Mélenchon, a former Trotskyite, who finished fourth. With Mr. Mélenchon out, many people see the race, as expressed in an old French saying, as a choice between “la peste et le choléra” (the plague and the cholera).

To many people here, the policy proposals of both candidates are unattractive: Ms. Le Pen proposes a law-and-order program that would place binational Muslims at higher risk of expulsion from the country if they are considered even remotely connected to those suspected of having terrorist links. She also has inveighed against wearing a head scarf in public.

Mr. Macron, a former banker, is seen as close to the moneyed elite. He is disparaged for his support for Uber, which employs many people at low wages and often under poor conditions. He worked as a minister to the Socialist president François Hollande, who promised improvements that never arrived.

Sociologists and political scientists who study France’s poorer suburbs with substantial minority populations, known here as banlieues, said neither candidate had given people much reason to vote for him or her.

“They are really tired of people talking about the banlieues but not doing anything,” said Julien Talpin, a researcher in political science at the University of Lille. “Macron in the banlieues is a kind of big failure. He appears to be an embodiment of the establishment, of the elite, and people can tell he’s not one of them.”

Mr. Macron received 22 percent of the vote in Stains.

Thomas Kirszbaum, a sociologist, says the demographics and voting patterns of the poorer suburbs are far more complex than is widely understood. Living together are people of immigrant background, who vote on the far left or not at all, and some longtime residents, usually white, but also some immigrants, who vote on the extreme right. In Stains, nearly 15 percent of voters favored Ms. Le Pen.

Then there is a small, new class of young entrepreneurs, both Muslims and non-Muslims, many of whom support Mr. Macron, who has made outreach to entrepreneurs a priority.

Mr. Talpin noted a big change from 2012, when the poor suburbs turned out in large numbers to vote for the Socialist Party candidate, Mr. Hollande; he was running against President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom many people opposed.

“They haven’t really mobilized so much against Le Pen,” he said, despite the xenophobic tone of her campaign. “They are somehow feeling they are experiencing that discrimination on a daily basis.”

Sitting in his office not far from the central square in Stains, the mayor, Azzédine Taïbi, who is Muslim, suggested that it would take someone who inspired people, as well as effective government programs, to get people to embrace the political system again.

“This is an electorate that has nothing more to lose,” he said. “For this reason, what I see in this election is a sense of abandonment from working-class people: Either we leave them in total hopelessness or we build hope with them through an alternative policy.”

Yassine Belattar, a popular stand-up comedian who grew up in the suburbs, said that anti-government feeling was significantly stronger this year because of Mr. Mélenchon, who ratified people’s sense of injustice and their fury at the system.

“He manipulates anger for his personal ends,” said Mr. Belattar, referring to Mr. Mélenchon, adding that the candidate’s refusal to endorse Mr. Macron helps Ms. Le Pen. Mr. Mélenchon announced on Friday that he would not vote for Ms. Le Pen but refused to endorse Mr. Macron.

Mr. Belattar said he intended to vote for Mr. Macron.

Yet the sense of betrayal is acute among many people, not least toward the Socialists who had promised change but failed to follow through.

“Hollande visited the suburbs but these were visits for the media,” said Slimane Abderrahmane, an assistant mayor in Bobigny, a neighboring suburb to Stains, where the abstention rate in the vote last week was 37 percent (including blank ballots). Mr. Mélenchon took 43 percent of the vote.

“Hollande promised social and economic programs,” he added. “He promised to end racial profiling. He was full of promises that people never saw come true.”

Mr. Abderrahmane said he was voting for Mr. Macron only because he was afraid that the situation for Muslims would get markedly worse under Ms. Le Pen.

However, his friend Sylvain Legér, a municipal counselor who is white and has spent his whole life in Bobigny, said that after voting for Mr. Mélenchon in the first round, he could not bring himself to vote for Mr. Macron. He instead will abstain.

“He’s for globalization 100 percent,” Mr. Legér said. “What does that mean when workers come from their own country, mix with French workers, and on one side you have young people who want to work and on the other you have people who come from elsewhere in Europe or from other countries and who work for less?”

On Friday, Catharine Bonté, 75, a former nurse’s aide, recalled writing letters to past presidents seeking help.

“They all helped me a bit with social care,” said Ms. Bonté, who is black. “And Giscard d’Estaing’s wife even came to support me once because I was a single mother and I was a victim of injustices and racism.”

“But Hollande, he never helped me; he never answered my letters,” she added. “So I understand the ones who gave up on voting. There is a lot of suffering here.”