I voted yesterday. And I urge you to vote in this election. It is vital. Most "D" candidates are craven or cowardly or both. But if you don't vote against "R" you are just as complicit as those craven and/or cowardly "D" pols. Seriously. Because there is a profound difference even now between "D" and "R."
And not just on women's reproductive rights. Nor is it just the difference between raising or abolishing the minimum wage. For example, there's the difference between _resident Bush and President Gore. If Gore were President we would NOT have invaded Iraq. And I say that with utter certainty. Indeed, the slaughter of innocents on 9/11 might well have been thwarted. And I say that with great confidence (even if you ascribe to the view that 9/11 was an "inside job"). That means that we could have been spared all the madness that has flown from those twin abominations.
The difference between another Scalia and another Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the difference between _resident Bush and President Gore, just as the difference between another Alito and another Sonia Sotomayor is the difference between sanity and a system in which corporations are persons and filthy lucre is speech. Do you get it yet? If Romney had been elected in 2012, we would have gone to war with Iran, and Syria. And if the Zombie Cult had controlled the Senate in 2013, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not have passed. (Our health care system is still an immoral racket, but we are, as a whole, better off now than we were before this bill became law. Tens of millions of previously uninsured citizens have been covered, and health insurance racketeers can no longer deny coverage because of "pre-existing conditions." ) Oh yeah, and if it weren't for the Zombie Cult and its Death Eater Overlords, we could have had an Ebola vaccine already. Seriously.
Perhaps you say you are tired of choosing the lesser of two evils? Well, then, you have not spent much time up close and personal with evil. There is a profound difference between greater and lesser.
Perhaps you imagine that if the "R" take the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016, it will only serve to hasten "the Revolution." Ha ha. Who will lead it? Russell Brand? Seriously.
If there were no difference why would the Oligarchy be spending so much cash to achieve "R" hegemony in the Senate?
"Take a look at the list of top donors. They might have distinctly different political agendas, but they have one thing irrefutably in common: they’re almost exclusively old white guys. Only seven women made it into the forty-two, and not a single person of color. One of the things highlighted in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, is how poorly America’s political leadership, from city councils to the US Senate, reflects the diversity of the country. According to data compiled by the Reflective Democracy Campaign, white men make up 65 percent of elected officials—more than twice their proportion in the general population. Only 4 percent of our political leaders are women of color ... In fact, the midterms suggest that white men are gaining clout, at least behind the veil. As campaign-finance laws erode, political power is increasingly concentrated among the billionaires playing the strings of the electoral marionette—a pool that looks less diverse even than Congress ..." -- Zoe Carpenter, Who’s Buying the Midterm Elections? A Bunch of Old White Guys, The Nation, 10-31-14
If there were no difference why would their Renfields in state legislatures be working so hard to disenfranchise the black, the brown, the young and the old (all of whom vote "D" overwhelmingly)? (See Ari Berman's New Voting Restrictions Could Swing the 2014 Election, The Nation, 10-31-14. Or just glance at this map ...)
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| States With New Voting Restrictions Since 2010 Elections (Brennan Center for Justice) |
And drag some other numbed-out, beaten-down progressives with you. Give them these numbers ...
Since taking office, Obama has had approximately 280 federal judicial nominees confirmed. This represents roughly one-third of the federal judiciary. This has had a profound impact on our legal system in at least two very important respects. First, Obama’s appointments have added substantial diversity to the federal bench. Forty-two percent of Obama’s judicial appointments have been women, as compared to only 22 percent of President George W. Bush’s nominees. Thirty-six percent of Obama’s judicial appointments have been minorities, as compared to only 18 percent of Bush’s judicial appointees. Second, although Obama has generally been much less ideological in his judicial nominations than Bush, there is no doubt he has appointed much more liberal judges than his predecessor, and the addition of almost 280 Obama-appointed judges has had a dramatic effect on the overall ideological disposition of the federal judiciary. Indeed, for the first time in more than a decade, judges appointed by Democratic presidents now substantially outnumber judges appointed by Republican presidents. These judges now hold a majority of seats of nine of the 13 United States Courts of Appeals. In 2008, Republican-appointed judges held a majority on 12 of the 13 Courts of Appeals. The shift is dramatic, and it is important.
-- Geoffrey Sloan, Who Controls the Senate Controls the Courts, The Daily Beast, 11/2/14
