#i literally do not give a flying fuck about electoral bullshit right now

[qqueenofhades]

Do you really hate this county? Or were you just ranting?

Sigh. I debated whether or not to answer this, since I usually keep the real-life/politics/depressing current events to a relative minimum on this blog, except when I really can't avoid ranting about it. But I have some things to get off my chest, it seems, and you did ask. So.

The thing is, any American with a single modicum of genuine historical consciousness knows that despite all the triumphalist mythology about Pulling Up By Our Bootstraps and the American Dream and etc, this country was founded and built on the massive and systematic exploitation and extermination of Black and Indigenous people. And now, when we are barely (400 years later!!!) getting to a point of acknowledging that in a widespread way, oh my god the screaming. I'm so sick of the American right wing I could spit for so many reasons, not least of which is the increasingly reductive and reactive attempts to put the genie back in the bottle and set up hysterical boogeymen about how Teaching Your Children Critical Race Theory is the end of all things. They have forfeited all pretense of being a real governing party; remember how their only platform at the 2020 RNC was "support whatever Trump says?" They have devolved to the point where the cruelty IS the point, to everyone who doesn't fit the nakedly white supremacist mold. They don't have anything to do aside from attempt to usher in actual, literal, dictionary-definition-of-fascism and sponsor armed revolts against the peaceful transfer of power.

That is fucking exhausting to be aware of all the time, especially with the knowledge that if we miss a single election cycle -- which is exceptionally easy to do with the way the Democratic electorate needs to be wooed and courted and herded like cats every single time, rather than just getting their asses to the polls and voting to keep Nazis out of office -- they will be right back in power again. If Manchin and Sinema don't get over their poseur pearl-clutching and either nuke the filibuster or carve out an exception for voting rights, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is never going to get passed, no matter how many boilerplate appeals the Democratic leadership makes on Twitter. In which case, the 2022 midterms are going to give us Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House (I threw up in my mouth a little typing that) and right back to the Mitch McConnell Obstruction Power Hour in the Senate. The Online Left (TM) will then blame the Democrats for not doing more to stop them. These are, of course, the same people who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton out of precious moral purity reasons in 2016, handed the election to Trump, and now like to complain when the Trump-stacked Supreme Court reliably churns out terrible decisions. Gee, it's almost like elections have consequences!!

Aside from my exasperation with the death-cult right-wing fascists and the Online Left (TM), I am sick and tired of how forty years of "trickle-down" Reaganomics has created a world where billionaires can just fly to space for the fun of it, while the rest of America (and the world) is even more sick, poor, overheated, economically deprived, and unable to survive the biggest public health crisis in a century, even if half the elected leadership wasn't actively trying to sabotage it. Did you know that half of American workers can't even afford a one-bedroom apartment? Plus the obvious scandal that is race relations, health care, paid leave, the education system (or lack thereof), etc etc. I'm so tired of this America Is The Greatest Country in the World mindless jingoistic catchphrasing. We are an empire in the late stages of collapse and it's not going to be pretty for anyone. We have been poisoned on sociopathic-libertarian-selfishness-disguised-as-Freedom ideology for so long that that's all there is left. We have become a country of idiots who believe everything their idiot friends post on social media, but in a very real sense, it's not directly those individuals' fault. How could they, when they have been very deliberately cultivated into that mindset and stripped of critical thinking skills, to serve a noxious combination of money, power, and ideology?

I am tired of the fact that I have become so drained of empathy that when I see news about more people who refused to get the vaccine predictably dying of COVID, my reaction is "eh, whatever, they kind of deserved it." I KNOW that is not a good mindset to have, and I am doing my best to maintain my personal attempts to be kind to those I meet and to do my small part to make the world better. I know these are human beings who believed what they were told by people that they (for whatever reason) thought knew better than them, and that they are part of someone's family, they had loved ones, etc. But I just can't summon up the will to give a single damn about them (I'm keeping a bingo card of right-wing anti-vax radio hosts who die of COVID and every time it's like, "Alexa, play Another One Bites The Dust.") The course that the pandemic took in 21st-century America was not preordained or inevitable. It was (and continues to be) drastically mismanaged for cynical political reasons, and the legacy of the Former Guy continues to poison any attempts to bring it under control or convince people to get a goddamn vaccine. We now have over 100,000 patients hospitalized with COVID across the country -- more than last summer, when the vaccines weren't available.

I have been open about my fury about the devaluation of the humanities and other critical thinking skills, about the fact that as an academic in this field, my chances of getting a full-time job for which I have trained extensively and acquired a specialist PhD are... very low. I am tired of the fact that Americans have been encouraged to believe whatever bullshit they fucking please, regardless of whether it is remotely true, and told that any attempt to correct them is "anti-freedom." I am tired of how little the education system functions in a useful way at all -- not necessarily due to the fault of teachers, who have to work with what they're given, and who are basically heroes struggling stubbornly along in a profession that actively hates them, but because of relentless under-funding, political interference, and furious attempts, as discussed above, to keep white America safely in the dark about its actual history. I am tired of the fact that grade school education basically relies on passing the right standardized tests, the end. I am tired of the implication that the truth is too scary or "un-American" to handle. I am tired. Tired.

I know as well that "America" is not synonymous in all cases with "capitalist imperialist white-supremacist corporate death cult." This is still the most diverse country in the world. "America" is not just rich white middle-aged Republicans. "America" involves a ton of people of color, women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Jews, Christians of good will (I have a whole other rant on how American Christianity as a whole has yielded all pretense of being any sort of a principled moral opposition), white allies, etc etc. all trying to make a better world. The blue, highly vaccinated, Biden-winning states and counties are leading the economic recovery and enacting all kinds of progressive-wishlist dream policies. We DID get rid of the Orange One via the electoral process and avert fascism at the ballot box, which is almost unheard-of, historically speaking. But because, as also discussed above, certain elements of the Democratic electorate need to fall in love with a candidate every single time or threaten to withhold their vote to punish the rest of the country for not being Progressive Enough, these gains are constantly fragile and at risk of being undone in the next electoral cycle. Yes, the existing system is a crock of shit. But it's what we've got right now, and the other alternative is open fascism, which we all got a terrifying taste of over the last four years. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to go back.

So... I don't know. I don't know if that stacks up to hate. I do hate almost everything about what this country currently is, structurally speaking, but I recognize that is not identical with the many people who still live here and are trying to do their best, including my friends, family, and myself. I am exhausted by the fact that as an older millennial, I am expected to survive multiple cataclysmic economic crashes, a planet that is literally boiling alive, a barely functional political system run on black cash, lies, and xenophobia, a total lack of critical thinking skills, renewed assaults on women/queer people/POC/etc, and somehow feel like I'm confident or prepared for the future. Not all these problems are only America's fault alone. The West as a whole bears huge responsibility for the current clusterfuck that the world is in, for many reasons, and so do some non-Western countries. But there is no denying that many of these problems have ultimate American roots. See how the ongoing fad for right-wing authoritarian strongmen around the world has them modeling themselves openly on Trump (like Brazil's lunatic president, Jair Bolsonaro, who talks all the time about how Trump is his political role model). See what's going on in Afghanistan right now. Etc. etc.

Anyway. I am very, very tired. There you have it.

[quakerjoe]

NO MORE: A CUPPA JOE FOR FRIDAY 13 MARCH 2020

I think if Biden's "it", I'm going to abstain.

I'm tired of the Dems doing nothing.

I'm tired of them forcing me to decide between two evils.

I'm not willing to surrender my minute, little slice of political power because of it.

I'll vote downballot and try to replace the old guard who are feckless and ineffective.

I'm tired of their propaganda shows, playing on their fame and reputation while answering to money, not us.

I'm tired of them NOT moving to get rid of the Electoral College.

I'm tired of them NOT moving to attack gerrymandering.

I'm tired of their inability to stand up to a party rife with the actual 'deep state' rich fucks, the nazis, and the kkk.

I'm tired of them playing gambling games with our lives instead of being a force to be reckoned with.

I'm tired of them being decades behind the times.

I'm going to have the balls to abstain.

I'm going to shoot a message into the wall for all to see...

"NO MORE"

Lining me up to vote for a lesser of two evils- the promise of PLUTOCRACY under Biden OR the threat of FASCISM under trump- seriously? I can't see myself attaching my name to that. NO MORE.

Screaming at me because I'm a Sanders supporter and then accusing me of being some fuckwit "Bernie Bro" because I disagree with you? NO MORE.

Here's the thing- WHEN the DNC fronts Biden, and you KNOW they will, we'll see 2016 all over again. When Biden loses, and you KNOW he will, all of these chicken-shit "Vote Blue No Matter Who" cucks will blame ME and those like me, the Progressives, for the defeat SOMEHOW. They always do. NOBODY was willing to own up to HRC's defeat in 2016; what should have been the EASIEST victory in political history.

Oh, and SPARE ME this horse shit about 'electibility' too. Stop sucking corporate media dick for a change. Do you think trump was or even IS "electable"? Let's be clear- BOTH trump AND Biden are all about sucking Wall St ass. BOTH want to give the super rich all the breaks and leave YOU with the bill. BOTH will shitcan Social Security AND Medicare/Medicaid. BOTH.

While Sanders is trying to get us on board with a health care system to literally save us ALL during a pandemic, Biden said, on live telly, that he'd veto the bill if it came to his desk because suddenly, despite voting FOR war with Iraq, NOW he's wanting to know where the money will come from.

So no, I won't be voting for Biden. The country is sick as fuck, and the DNC snake oil solution hasn't worked yet and it never will. The time for massive change is in the air, and that scares Americans because they're terrified of EVERYTHING. This is NOT the "home of the brave". If you couldn't stomach backing Sanders, then I say to you- YOU are a COWARD. As for me- NO MORE!

Right up until recently I was all "Vote Blue No Matter Who" just because I was against trump, and let's be clear- I AM. But using trump's shittiness as leverage for the Dems to allow another version of him who said "nothing's going to change much" to be their candidate is them force-feeding us all a steaming plate of shit. They expect us to eat it. Most of you will. I won't anymore. NO MORE.

Neither Biden or trump ca form coherent sentences or string a thought or two together. And while some of you are out there cavalierly throwing around the "You're a Bernie Bro!" card, your boy Joe is actually verbally abusing and threatening to fight voters, LIVE on camera! So take the Bernie Bro shit and cram it up your ass. You get to play that card NO MORE.

I highly doubt my abstaining from voting for Biden if/when he's the nominee will put a dent in history. I highly doubt this post will start a rally with congrats being thrown my way for having the stones to finally tell the DNC to go fuck themselves. I suspect that more angry responses will fly at me, accusing me of only helping trump. To be clear, I'm helping NEITHER. If anything, I have a better understanding of those who wouldn't vote blue no matter who in 2016. Perhaps I'm just late catching on, but I get it now.

America is ill. Corporate media is ass-fucking you ALL. Progressives get ZERO media coverage, and the GOP-DNC alliance is still conning you into choosing between High Grade Fuckery with GOP politicians of Diet Fuckery with Democrats. MY precious, singular, little vote is my ONLY true weapon, and I hold it dearly. For my own conscience, dignity, and self respect, it must be earned and not surrendered just because I don't like trump. EITHER WAY we're voting for pretty much the same fuckwad only one has an (R) on the ballot, the other a (D).

Perhaps the only way things will TRULY get better is if things proceed to get worse. Perhaps we're simply not "woke" enough yet. Perhaps we really DO want more trump, otherwise the DNC would have told Joe to sit down and shut the fuck up ages ago. Perhaps Warren would have got off her ass and endorsed her "fellow" Progressive immediately in 2016 or, this time around, dropped out before Super Tuesday and, along with Yang, and the "anti-Biden" hypocrite-turncoats like Booker and "I was that girl" Kamala Harris. No, these bullshit artists showed us their true colors and backed Biden. The jig is up. We watched them SELL US ALL OUT, instead of backing the candidate that better and more closely represented their own agendas, or so they claimed once upon a time.

This gaggle of liars and hypocrites will NOT get my vote. NO MORE.

In their actions, the Dems have made it clear. In Biden's own words they seem to want us to 'vote for the other guy'. Well, I choose to vote for neither. NO MORE.

 If you want to keep empowering the Democratic Party to keep making feckless choices, displaying cowardice, and serving us hot bowls of filth to ear, that’s on you. I won’t be doing it anymore. I’ll vote for what I WANT, not for what I’m willing to settle for. This country has moved so goddamned far to the right that sanity and conventional ‘leftism’ is now considered evil and unspeakable.

Why is it a bad thing to want good things for ALL of us? Why are so many people so stoked to keep throwing all of our hard-earned cash to the rich instead of seeing our tax dollars make “We the People” safer, healthier, better educated, and worth being called “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? We throw away our rights, kill our economy, destroy the planet- let’s call it what it is, shall we? We totally shit where we eat and them blame the poor and powerless for the mess. We ALWAYS punch down in this nation instead of going after those doing the real harm. Frankly, I’m sick of the stupidity and ignorance the Democrats have displayed and I will support them NO MORE.

~Quaker Joe

[quakerjoe]

The Big Choice

If Biden’s the nominee, not only is that a hand-off to trump for the election, but it’s asking me to choose between:

The Sharks or The Jets?

The Capulets or the Montagues?

The Empire or the New Order?

The Nazis or the Mongols?

The path to Orwellian or Mad Max?

Being stabbed or just shot?

Poisoned or suffocated/drowned?

Shit soup or a feces sandwich?

Getting hit with a bag with 5 kilos of rocks or 5 kilos of bottle caps?

Being shot in the left nut or the right one?

Losing everything I own to the economy or a hospital bill or just have a house fire?

Keeping my home while watching a loved one die or get them medical treatment so we can then be homeless?

Mauled by a large bear or a shark attack?

Listening to Biden Bros or trump supporters?

Voting Biden will set us back years to an era that set us up for trump, BUT, not voting for him will keep the new “normal” and will NOT lend permission to the Dem party to keep acting like cowards and serving us up hot plates of shitty table scraps so they can keep their power and cash flow going while doing little more than throwing the working class table scraps. Enough is enough.

American clearly doesn’t WANT to get better. It’s a nation PROUD to be rife with ignorance, shit education, shittier and shittier living conditions because it simply LOVES doing things the hard way and any red-blooded #Murican only feels joy, apparently, when there’s always something to make life miserable and having things to endlessly bitch about while doing nothing about it.

It’s not that we can’t have nice things- we just don’t WANT them bad enough to be brave enough to GET them. Instead of backing Sanders and the Progressive movement to make life better for all, backing Joe seems to too many to be “safe”. That, according to what I was taught in history class, is fundamentally UNAMERICAN. It’s cowardly. It’s totally chickenshit. It’s a dick move.

Any parent knows that when you see your kid doing something that might get it hurt, you warn it. You can only do it so many times. Sooner or later, in order for the kid to learn, you have to let it fall down or whatever and get hurt.

It is ABUNDANTLY clear that the United States just needs to get hurt even more. They’re practically BEGGING for the pain. So fuck it. So be it.

I won’t be voting for Biden. I don’t want things to get worse. I don’t want more people getting hurt by trump, but for fuck sake, you feckless fuckwits and fucktards, if you think Biden, Pelosi and the Democrats have your backs and your interests at heart, you haven’t been paying attention.

So, get hurt. Cast your vote for Biden if it’ll let you sleep at night. Blame me and others like me when it all goes tits up. You will anyway, instead of taking a modicum of responsibility for your own lack of vision and developed sense of apathy not to mention having adhered to the GOP mantra of never putting the real blame where it is due. Don’t blame trump. Don’t blame the Dems. Don’t blame yourself. You’ll blame us; the Progressives etc. who are tired of the Dems literally forcing us to make shitty choices like the ones above. They’re not serious. They’re, at best, low-level grifters who don’t really do fuck-all when it comes to defending or restoring the Democratic Republic. No action on killing the Electoral College. No killing the super delegate horseshit. No killing off caucus elections. No making voting days mandatory holidays. Nada that matters. Their handling of the epidemic is making the GOP look good for fuck sake.

You can shoulder that responsibility. I won’t have it. NO MORE. I’ll be waiting for the next election when there’s something WORTH voting for. In the mean time, I’ll see you at the downballots. Fuck this bullshit potus con job.

Oh, and spare me this bullshit diatribe and sophomoric rhetoric.

I’m NOT casting a vote for trump either. Is that quantifying that if I did, I’d be voting for him twice? Grow the fuck up. I’m not going to let you try and dump YOUR failings on me; thank you for making my point with the bullshit, GOP tactic of the false equivalency.

I’m sick of the game, children. The GOP pushes a constant, never ending supply of vile, evil cunts. Where were the Dems when they took the House AND the Senate during Obama’s time? I was there. I voted.

Countless polls showed that Sanders would have kicked trump’s ass in 2016, but you cunts wanted HRC. So that’s on you. Go fuck yourselves, especially if you’re one of those feckless twats who voted for HRC over Sanders.

After, you blamed us Sanders supporters for her losing. Again, go fuck yourselves. We didn’t forget that.

Get all your “I”m with her” lot to vote for Biden. See how that goes for you. Despite the “I was that girl” stance, Kamala’s backing him regardless of his racist, sucking GOP cock stance on racist shit. Oddly enough, he’s got “the black vote” against a guy who literally marched with MLK’s movement and got arrested for his trouble.

You seem to have plenty of help and don’t need me or mine now do you? You already sound like sore losers and the election’s not even over yet. You know as well as I do that Biden’s going to go tits-up and lose to trump. You KNOW this. Stop wasting my time with the childish hate mail. You don’t care, so why should I? Jesus, you people are ignorant. You sound like trump supporters, rallying behind ANOTHER babbling idiot who doesn’t give a flying fuck about YOU. The party is NOT coming to save you.

The Party does not even know you exist and they don’t want to. They want their money. They want their power. They’re just not that into you, but they do love the attention you give them and the cash you send their way. The guy who wanted to tear it all down and fix shit is your scapegoat, like Barabbas, the murderer the crowd wanted released instead of Jesus, and guess what- YOU are part of that crowd.

[quakerjoe]

We’ve reached critical mass and have crossed the threshold of dereliction of duty with a flying leap here.

Let’s move past the whole Tara Reade accusation in regard to whether or not her claims are true or not. We’re beyond that now. The media has been doing the job of the Democrats, investigating and applying DUE PROCESS that the goddamn DEMOCRATS should have been doing! 

THIS IS THE FUCKING ISSUE AT HAND NOW.

Pelosi threw due process out the window. The DNC won’t touch it. They OPENLY COVERED FOR A POTENTIAL RAPIST AND SEXUAL PREDATOR exactly the way the GOP turns a constant blind eye to them like they’re the Catholic church.

THIS IS THE FUCKING ISSUE AT HAND NOW!

All the butt-buddies claiming to be the ‘people’s party’, the common person’s representatives, the ones for civil rights and all that horseshit that they don’t bother with anymore... All of the people backing Joe Biden have tipped their hand, slapped you ALL in the FACE with the fact that they DO NOT CARE whether Joe Biden is a fucking rapist or not. Period. End of story. They’re officially no better than the GOP. They’ve cemented their positions of apathy and neglect. They are NOT interested in vetting their candidates, and come the elections, trump is going to end up kicking biden’s ass because these assclowns don’t get that not enough people are going to be enthused enough to vote for that old fuckwit. 

For those of us with some memory or at least the interest in looking up Biden’s track record while in government, we already KNOW he WAY WORSE than HRC and in fact should have been thrown the fuck out of the Dem. party. He’s a fucking GOP operative working from behind ‘enemy lines’, destroying the party for the GOP and all to eager to do their bidding and the bidding of his Wall St. masters.

JOE BIDEN IS NOT THAT INTO YOU. Once you vote for him, he has literally NO USE for YOU. Neither do the corporate/establishment Democrats. They’re GOP agents for all their worth. The upper crust of the party doesn’t give a shit about YOU.

Look at Superdelegates for instance. They’re there to ensure that the DNC can decide who gets the nomination to run for POTUS, not YOU, the voter.

That aside, it’s LITERALLY in the DNC by-laws that regardless of the voter’s choice, they are NOT OBLIGED to front the person with the most delegates. If they don’t LIKE who we vote for, fuck you then; they’ll decide anyway. If they’re lucky, the voters will pick who the DNC WANTS, maintaining the illusion that your vote counts.

The DNC works closely with corporate media outlets, both of whom serve the rich and powerful people and corporations. THEY decide who gets press coverage and who doesn’t. Why do you think Sanders got so little in 2016? 2020? Ever?

The ONE PERSON that the Democratic Establishment LOATHES more than Donald Trump is: {bing!} You guessed it! Senator Bernie Sanders. While they’re pushing for elections during a pandemic and not delaying them or moving to get it done by mail, how much coverage did Biden get? Sanders?

Voting for Biden gives the Democratic party consent for them to keep doing what they want, your feelings and thoughts be damned. It’s consensual, political RAPE. While not remotely as traumatizing & painful as sexual rape, this is still another kind of rape. It’s staying in an abusive relationship where we’re constantly being starved, beaten, overworked, underpaid, having our lives and safety put at risk and still agreeing to it day after day, year after year and the Dems KEEP repeating the process!

It’s time to put TERM LIMITS into play.

It’s time to get rid of the Electoral College.

It’s time to be aggressively active against voter suppression.

It’s time to aggressively active against gerrymandering.

It’s time to vote these old, white, male assholes OUT of ALL branches of government. Women too!

Pelosi has only demonstrated that women are no better in the political arena than men; congratulations. Stacy Abrams has show us all that women are just as eager to turn a blind eye and be a rape apologist when it will advance her own career. She’s a traitor to women and the Black Community. Liz Warren, claiming to be Progressive, threw her alleged friend and colleague under the bus, both in 2016 but not backing him early on in the race that she herself declined to enter but also in 2020! She should have dropped out earlier and backed Sanders but instead looked after her OWN ass and her OWN career and subsequently backed Biden, even AFTER the rape allegations which the party ignored and tried to gloss over and cover up (after screaming for justice with the Kavenaugh hearings). Liz is in it for Liz, NOT YOU.

We’re far, far overdue for RADICAL change here, but if you BOTHER doing your research, you’ll find that the radical changes have already BEEN made and they dragged us WAY FAR to the “right”. By comparison of decades past, Sanders would have been called a ‘centrist’ for fuck sake.

Do your research. Don’t vote for Biden. Skip a vote for POTUS altogether if you must. It’s time to tell these cock-thistles in the DNC that we’re tired of them fronting whatever shit-guzzling shill they feel like, DEVOID OF VETTING, year after year, just because in their eyes, they’re boy will always be “better than the GOPer”. They squeeze us by the balls and force us to vote for shit and even when we step in line and don’t make a fuss and play along- THEY STILL DELIVER NOTHING. They CAVE under GOP pressure and we get NOTHING. 

All the “HOPE” we were supposed to have under Obama ended up being a “Make a wish list for Santa” line of bullshit. Even when he got his start and the Dems had the brief powerplay by having control of the House and the Senate, they pissed away the time and LOST LOADS of seats in Congress, essentially handing ALL the power on the Hill to Mitch McConnell. Well done.

Stop. Giving. The. DNC. Constant. Consent. To. Fuck. You. Over!