13
   

Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

 
 
hightor
 
  4  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 03:35 am
Quote:
Yesterday, in Time magazine, Eric Cortellessa explained that the electoral strategy of the Trump campaign was to get men who don’t usually vote, particularly young ones, to turn out for Trump. If they could do that, and at the same time hold steady the support of white women, Trump could win the election. So Trump has focused on podcasts followed by young men and on imitating the patterns of professional wrestling performances.

At the same time, he has promised to “protect women…whether the women like it or not,” and lied consistently about crime statistics to keep white suburban women on his side by suggesting that he alone can protect them. Today in Gastonia, North Carolina, for example, Trump told the audience: "They say the suburban women. Well, the suburbs are under attack right now. When you're home in your house alone and you have this monster that got out of prison and he's got, you know, six charges of murdering six different people, I think you'd rather have Trump."

The crime rate has dropped dramatically in the past year.

Rather than keeping women in his camp, Trump’s strategy of reaching out to his base to turn out low-propensity voters, especially young men, has alienated them. That alienation has come on top of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion.

Early voting in Pennsylvania showed that women sent in 56% of the early ballots, compared to 43% for men. Seniors—people who remember a time before Roe v. Wade—also showed a significant split. Although the parties had similar numbers of registrants, nearly 59% of those over 65 voting early were Democrats. That pattern holds across all the battleground states: women’s early voting outpaces men’s by about 10 points. While those numbers are certainly not definitive—no one knows how these people voted, and much could change over the next few days—the enthusiasm of those two groups was notable.

This evening, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll conducted by the highly respected Selzer & Co. polling firm from October 28 to 31 showed Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa 47% to 44% among likely voters. That outlying polling result is undoubtedly at least in part a reflection of the fact that Harris’s running mate is the governor of a neighboring state, but that’s not the whole story. While Trump wins the votes of men in Iowa by 52% to 38%, and of evangelicals by 73% to 20%, women, particularly older women, are driving the shift to favor Harris in a previously Republican-dominated state.

Independent women back Harris by a 28-point margin, while senior women support her by a margin of more than 2 to 1, 63% to 28%. Overall, women back Harris by a margin of about 20 points: 56% to 36%. Seniors as a group including men as well as women are also strongly in Harris’s camp, by 55% to 36%.

A 79-year-old poll respondent said: “I like her policies on reproductive health and having women choosing their own health care, and the fact that I think that she will save our democracy and follow the rule of law…. if the Republicans can decide what you do with your body, what else are they going to do to limit your choice, for women?”

The obvious driver for women and seniors to oppose Trump is the Dobbs decision. The loss of abortion care has put women’s lives at risk. Within days after the Supreme Court handed the decision down, we started hearing stories of raped children forced to give birth or cross state lines for abortions, as well as of women who have suffered or died from a lack of health care after doctors feared intervening in miscarriages would put them in legal jeopardy.

As X user E. Rosalie noted, Iowa’s abortion ban also has long-term implications for the state. It has forced OBGYNs to leave and has made recruiting more impossible. As people are unable to get medical care to have babies, they will choose to live elsewhere, draining talent out of the state. That, in turn, will weaken Iowa’s economy.

That same process is playing out in all the states that have banned abortion.

It seems possible that the Dobbs decision ushered in the end of the toxic American individualism on which the Reagan revolution was built. When he ran for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan set out to dismantle the active government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights. Such a government was akin to socialism, he claimed, and he insisted it stifled American individualism.

In contrast to such a government, Reagan celebrated the mythological American cowboy. In his telling, that cowboy wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone to provide for and to protect his family. Good women in the cowboy myth were wives and mothers, in contrast to the women who wanted equal rights and jobs outside the home in modern America. That traditional image of American women had gotten legs in 1974, when the television show Little House on the Prairie debuted; it would run until 1983. Prairie dresses became the rage.

Reagan’s embrace of women’s role as wives and mothers brought traditionalist white Southern Baptists to his support. Those traditionalists objected to the government’s recognition of women’s equal rights because they believed equality undermined a godly patriarchal family structure. They made ending access to abortion their main issue.

At the same time that the right wing insisted that women belonged in their homes, it socialized young men to believe in a mythological world based on guns and the domination of women. In 1980 the previously nonpartisan National Rifle Association endorsed Reagan, their first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate, and the rise of evangelical culture reinforced that dominant men must protect submissive women.

When federal marshals tried to arrest Randy Weaver at his home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in August 1992 for failure to show up in court for trial on a firearms charge, right-wing activists and neo-Nazis from a nearby Aryan Nations compound rushed to Ruby Ridge to protest what right-wing media insisted was simply a man protecting his family.

The next February, when officers stormed the compound of a religious cult in Waco, Texas, whose former members reported that their leader was sexually assaulting children and stockpiling weapons, right-wing talk show hosts—notably Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones—blamed new president Bill Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno, for the ensuing gun battle and fire that killed 76 people. Reno was the first female attorney general, and right-wing media made much of the idea that a group of Christians had been killed by a female government official who was unmarried and—as opponents made much of—unfeminine.

When he ran for office in 2015, Trump appealed to those men socialized into violence and dominance. He embraced the performance of dominance as it is done in professional wrestling, and urged his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies. The Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted of sexual assault did not hurt his popularity with his base. He promised to end abortion rights and suggested he would impose criminal punishments on women seeking abortions.

And then, in June 2022, thanks to the votes of the three religious extremists Trump put on it, the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, stripping women of a constitutional right that the U.S. government had recognized for almost 50 years.

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that women could change state laws if they saw fit, writing in the decision that “women are not without electoral or political power.” Indeed, since the Dobbs decision, every time abortion rights have been on the ballot, voters have approved them, although right-wing state legislators have worked to prevent the voters’ wishes from taking effect.

In this moment, though, it is clear that women have electoral and political power over more than abortion rights.

The 1980 election was the first one in which the proportion of eligible female voters who turned out to vote was higher than the proportion of eligible men. It was also the first one in which there was a partisan gender gap, with a higher proportion of women than men favoring the Democrats. That partisan gap now is the highest it has ever been.

The fear that women can, if they choose, overthrow the patriarchal mythology of cowboy individualism that shaped the modern MAGA Republican Party is likely behind the calls of certain right-wing influencers and evangelical leaders to stop women from voting. For sure, it is behind the right-wing freak-out over the video voiced by actor Julia Roberts that reassures women that they do not have to tell their husbands how they voted.

The right-wing version of the American cowboy was always a myth. Nothing mattered more for success in the American West than the kinship networks and community support that provided money, labor, and access to trade outlets. When the economic patterns of the American West replicated those of the industrializing East after the Civil War, success during the heyday of the cowboy depended on access to lots of capital, giving rise to western barons and then to popular political movements to regulate businesses and give more power to the people. Far from being the homebound wives of myth, women were central to western life, just as they have always been to American society.

In Flagstaff, Arizona, today, Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz told a crowd: “I kind of have a feeling that women all across this country, from every walk of life, from either party, are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump next Tuesday, November 5, whether he likes it or not.”

hcr
hightor
 
  4  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 04:57 am

I’m an Environmentalist. That’s Why I Can’t Vote Green.


Award-winning filmmaker and director of Gasland Josh Fox on why he will never vote for Jill Stein.


Quote:
Milanville, Pennsylvania—Progressives can truly win in this election, even though we have a moderate Democrat on the ticket. And it’s not by voting for Jill Stein. But first, a little history…

Not long ago the entire upper Delaware River basin in Pennsylvania—one of the most beautiful areas in the country, in the watershed for New York City, southern New Jersey and Philadelphia—was on the chopping block for fracking.

A 75 mile stretch of the Delaware River could have become a toxic oil field. Fracking is an environmental apocalypse: millions of gallons of toxic fracking fluids, radioactive waste, underground water contamination, hundreds of thousands of truck trips, air pollution, land scarring, massive public health crises, and depleted water supply. Everything about the practice is toxic; it is inherently contaminating in the long and short term.

Our community was quick to understand the threat and organize and mobilize against it. Every little town along the Delaware across New York and Pennsylvania had a mom-and-pop anti-fracking group spring up. My film Gasland, on HBO, was part of this campaign, and our Gasland tours went from town to town, Johnny Appleseed–style, fostering our new movement.

Amazingly, we won. We banned fracking in the Delaware River basin and in New York State, saving the water supply for 16 million people. One of the greatest achievements of the environmental movement in this century.

We did this by convincing the Democratic governors of New York and Delaware and the president at the time—Barack Obama—to ban fracking here. These were all moderate Democrats. Not exactly Bernie Sanders, if you know what I mean.

I consider myself far to the left of Andrew Cuomo and Barack Obama. But I know that if those moderate Democrats hadn’t been in office, there’s no way we would have won.

Republicans would have just said no. This whole place would have been completely fracked to hell. We would have lost. And the whole gorgeous, life-giving national treasure of the Delaware River would have been a toxic fracking zone.

Our victory against fracking kept more carbon and methane in the ground than almost any other single environmental win in history—making it a huge win for the climate as well.

Here is the key point: I’m not in love with Kamala Harris’s positions on fracking. I find it utterly infuriating when moderate Democrats think that they need to pay lip service to a toxic destructive climate monster of an industry to win Pennsylvania. I don’t actually think that is true, because studies have shown that 70 percent of Pennsylvania residents want fracking either banned or much more tightly regulated.

But I don’t need to be in love. I need to be able to vote strategically.

Hundreds of thousands of people showed up to protect this place and to hold moderate Democrats accountable, and that was the key to victory here.

You know who didn’t show up for this place? Jill Stein. She doesn’t show up for these frontline battles. Ever.

Stein says she’s against fracking, but Stein has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the oil and gas industry. Did you know that? Did you know that she actually profits off of the oil and gas industry, that she has had investments in the Keystone XL pipeline and multiple fracking companies?

Did you know that she has investments in Raytheon, that she’s had investments in ExxonMobil? Did you know that she has investments in Home Depot—one of the most rapacious companies in the world, guilty of horrific deforestation throughout the world?

How is it that the Green Party candidate hasn’t divested her own personal fortune from fossil fuels? It’s sheer hypocrisy. And so is the strategy of running for president every four years but never showing up for battles like this.

In 2016, Stein defended these investments by saying they are mutual funds and indexed retirement funds.

But that, plainly speaking, is bunk.

Her claims are a slap in the face to the entire fossil fuel divestment movement. It is easier now than ever to have investments that are fossil free; doing so is a huge plank of the environmental cause. Hundreds of real activists were arrested this summer in New York City calling for Citibank to divest as part of the Summer of Heat campaign. For Stein to ignore all this and still attempt to call herself an activist is beyond hypocrisy, it is political malpractice. Shame on you, Dr. Stein! Shame on you for profiting from fracking and oil drilling.

I’m not in love with Kamala Harris’s positions—on fracking, and on some other issues. But I will tell you what I am in love with. I’m in love with our movements.

I’m in love with what we can do. The entire history of progressive progress in this country is of movements pushing moderate presidents. It happened with FDR and the labor movement. It happened with LBJ and the MLK and the civil rights movement. It happened with Obama and Biden and the movement for gay marriage. We organize and push them—and that’s how we get what we want. That’s our progressive history in America.

But in order for us progressives to do our jobs and fight effectively for a more just and equitable world as a movement, we need to have Harris in office. If we have Donald Trump in office, there’s no chance in hell that we’re actually going to advance an environmental agenda.

So I urge you to please believe in us as a movement. Love us. Believe in our power. We have done this before—and we can do it again with a moderate Democrat in office. Which is the only choice we’ve got right now.

If everyone in who voted for Stein in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan had voted for the Democrat instead, Trump would never have been the president.

We have the true power. It comes from the bottom up.

And I believe in us.

A vote for Harris is a vote for us, a vote for our movements to have a fighting chance for change. Progressive politics and advancing our agenda in this country is not something that happens every four years when you vote, or every four years when a toxic egomaniac like Stein (or Trump, for that matter) runs for president. It is a daily commitment. So vote for Kamala Harris. Join the movement—and I’ll see you on the front lines.

thenation
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:08 am
@Lash,
You support Putin's genocide.
izzythepush
 
  4  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:12 am
@hightor,
Our very own Edgar, who also refused to vote rep or dem hasn't voted for Stein.

Fossil fuel owning Stein is not Green she's a Republican tool.
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:13 am
@izzythepush,
War is ****, but as you know, not all wars are genocide.
You’re grasping so hard, but I understand how desperate you must feel, trying to defend so many horrible opinions with this infamous live-streamed genocide dripping off the top of them.
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:14 am
@Walter Hinteler,
I expect the unvarnished truth from her because that’s all I’ve heard from her.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:18 am
@izzythepush,
She has a generic retirement package where the specific stocks are selected for her. Hahaha. Hilarious, these lame lies!! How the establishment shakes in their boots!

Democracy INDEED!
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:27 am
@Lash,
Blather, any true environmentalist would refuse to hold fossil fuels,

All you have are lies. The UK Greens have condemned Israel while Stein gobbles up petrodollars.

She is a hypocritical piece of crap who doesn't give a **** about the Palestinians.

Quote:
Greens become first political party in England and Wales to recognise Israeli government conduct as ‘Apartheid’ and ‘Genocide’

The Green Party has voted at its Manchester conference to recognise the Israeli government as an “apartheid” state, as defined by international treaties such as the International Convention on Apartheid (1973) and Rome Statute (1998).

The conference also voted to recognise Israeli military operations in Gaza as a “genocide” as defined under the UN Genocide Convention (1948).

Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire, said: “We don’t use terms like genocide or apartheid lightly, but they are a sad reflection of the atrocities being carried out by the Israeli State.

“This motion reflects International Humanitarian Law, including the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and it is essential that British political parties unequivocally uphold these basic minimum standards of international law.”

The conference also reaffirmed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Ellie Chowns said: “We will only see an end to the escalating violence in the Middle East when there are clear incentives for all involved in the war in Gaza to agree to a ceasefire, the release of all hostages and an end to the occupation.

“We will press the UK government to step up its actions, including suspending all arms export licenses to Israel, and full co-operation with the actions of the international courts.

“Without an agreement, the intolerable death toll in Gaza will continue to rise, the hostages will be at greater risk and there will be an increased chance of sleepwalking into a larger regional war.”


https://greenparty.org.uk/2024/09/09/greens-become-first-political-party-in-england-and-wales-to-recognise-israeli-government-conduct-as-apartheid-and-genocide/
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:28 am
@Lash,
Stein is part of the establishment.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:34 am
@Lash,
You support Russian imperialism but attack Israeli imperialism because it suits your purposes.

It's a tactic, nobody believes you give a **** about anyone outside of the Southern US states, especially the Palestinians.

Your contempt for Arab lives was evident when you supported Dubya's illegal war in Iraq 150,000 Iraqis killed, including 122,000 civilians.

You voted for that, and your illegal war in Iraq killed far more than double the amount of Palestinians butchered by Netanyahu.

Btw, it's a tactic of small parties to make impossible election promises because they know they will never get in.
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:41 am
@Walter Hinteler,
Several Sahra Wagenknecht speeches have caught favorable attention among US Greens. Characterize her as you will, but I haven’t yet found disagreement with her.

She seems like a breath of fresh air.
Lash
 
  -3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:45 am
@izzythepush,
You’re a funny character.

You just start yelling ridiculous random hyperbole when you are revealed.

Like clockwork.
Lash
 
  -3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:47 am
@izzythepush,
I think you need some ashwaganda and therapy.

I’m excited to vote for Jill Stein tomorrow for the second time. Taking my grandson.

And talking about the meaning of democracy.
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:53 am
@Lash,
The US Greens are run by a fossil fuel owning fascist no wonder they like her.

There are ethical investments, finance companies who specialise in portfolios that eschew the arms and fossil fuel industries.

With a damning portfolio like Stein's she would no be allowed membership of the Green or Liberal or Labour parties over here.

Roland Barthes said that Socialism politicises Art while Fascism aestheticizes politics.

That what the US "Greens" are doing, aestheticizing politics.
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:54 am
@Lash,
You're just a fascist propaganda machine with occasional spurts of bullshit.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 06:56 am
@Lash,
Lash wrote:


I’m excited to vote for Jill Stein tomorrow for the second time.

And talking about the meaning of democracy.


Democracy is about one person one vote, not two.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 07:03 am
@Lash,
And now you're hawking nostrums.

Ashwaganda (sic) is a pile of crap.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 07:26 am
@izzythepush,
Quote:
Roland Barthes said that Socialism politicises Art while Fascism aestheticizes politics.


I think it originated here:
Quote:
Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the
Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a
degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the
first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic.
Communism responds by politicizing art.

Walter Benjamin, from The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction
hightor
 
  2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 07:28 am
Quote:
War is ****, but as you know, not all wars are genocide.

Not all mass killings are genocide.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 07:33 am
@Lash,
Lash wrote:

I think you need some ashwaganda and therapy.


I point out your lies and you respond with personal slurs.

In footballing terms it's called playing the person instead of the ball.

And it's proof you have no response to your lies about UK Greens.
0 Replies
 
 

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