Brainwashed by Democrat American Pride
Recent pro-American messaging from the Democrat party is getting into my head and I don't like it.
I'm a leftist, a socialist. Largely, I believe in: businesses being owned, in large part, by workers and by small government entities. Further, an end to imperialism, capitalist over-production, and worker exploitation. I also am a big fan of small capitalist enterprises with limited profits & small workforces.
"Lesser of two evils" is a problem because I don't want to vote for evil.
I thought Kamala Harris had me after her DNC speech. It was a good speech. It was strong, it had some substance (certainly more than Trump), it called for progress, but stood strong on things Republicans care about - border, china, policing.
And in my excitement to have a Trump defeat this November, I'm thinking in political strategies - "This speech is 'good' because it will win voters & the election".
And to this extent, I would be abandoning some of my values and my principles.
I cannot vote for genocide in Gaza.
I cannot vote for the $800 billion+ funding of war profiteers.
There are so many other issues that matter - Lina Khan going after monopolies. Improving housing availability. Progressing climate progress. Feeding and housing the poor.
I don't want to be a single-issue voter. But how can I get past the genocidal imperialism of the United States?
It's not a single issue. It's pervasive and it's fundamental to how our country operates in the world.
We have military bases all over. Harris wants our military to be the "most lethal" military in the world.
And it's easy for me to buy into this. I'm scared of terrorism. I'm scared of foreign nations. I'm scared other countries will impose imperialism upon America.
I'm scared how Americans will react if we lose our oil access in the middle east.
I'm scared what countries Russia will invade if we're not providing arms.
I'm worried about nukes in countries like Iran.
Frankly, I don't know enough to either substantiate those fears, nor to contradict them.
I'm tempted to take this main-stream status-quo view (i.e. support our imperialism) because of these fears.
But I'm also steadfastly against what's happening in Gaza. And I struggle with hearing about past military action - like Obama's drone strikes that killed innocents overseas.
Did we need to do those drone strikes? I think it's horrible to kill innocent people, but ... global military affairs are so far beyond my understanding.
So it's hard to assess. Is this an unavoidable side-effect of curtailing terrorism or something? Are there more malicious goals from the U.S.?
I know about Bay of Pigs, and the CIA's explicit intent to install a provincial government "approved by state" and "controlled by CIA". It's in declassified U.S. documents, from the CIA itself.
It fucking sucks. I don't wanna make the choice between long-term hope of growing the third party (by voting for Cornel West or Jill Stein) and the short term interest of actually addressing some domestic issues.
But so many of our issues have come under Democrats. Idunno man.
I felt the rah-rah Harris thing for 2 or 3 days, but that bought-in feeling has faded, and I've challenged the excitement within myself and reminded myself (with the help of activists and reporting online) that there's a lot of other issues I have that Harris and Democrats don't even begin to address.
And maybe part of that is because of the voters. Politicians need votes, so they've gotta play along sometimes with the electorate, even if the electorate is wrong.
But fuck that. If I ever run for office, I should stand on my principles and values and risk losing if it means standing by them.
Inline with that - I should also listen to voters & new information & be open to changing my mind. I'm not saying I should be hardline on everything. But I also should NOT capitulate to power, whether it's corporate donors, or the power of the two-party system.
I'm probably voting for Jill Stein. I want Cornel West, but it's really just vibes. I don't think he's a serious candidate with serious policies or a serious campaign. I think Jill Stein is. I need to learn more about her, watch a speech or two, search up a couple fact checks.
Oh! Also, the Dem's be fucking lying all the time. They misrepresent so much shit. Over the years, they've focused so much on dumb things Trump has said when half the time they're misrepresenting what Trump said. And even if they were 100% right, I feel like they make us more stupid by focusing on that shit instead of his policies.
Grill his policies, over and over and over again. Be specific, be accurate, represent them correctly, and challenge them, disagree with them, and talk about how they're actually bad.
That does happen. Maybe it's an issue of my filter bubble. But Idunno, it seems to be pervasive - comes from Democrats and tons of liberal media. It's shocking the mainstream news sources I've seen pin comments to Trump that he did not make.
(I'm not giving Fox a pass. We just already hate Fox on the left so they don't need more criticism.)
"on the left" - Let's remember that the PEOPLE should be united against the politicians. It's not a left-right issue. It's a people vs. power issue. We should not be on the team of the powers over us. Our relationship with politicians should be primarily antagonistic and skeptical. We also need to collaborate, but with skepticism and without selling out the antagonism where it's needed.
The politicians are FOR the people. The people (i.e. WE) should also be FOR the people (i.e. EACHOTHER). And that means antagonistic and skeptical toward all the politicians, regardless of party or policy.