[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Series...

Sun Oct 17 13:38:44 CDT 2010

In your eyes; but that does not necessarily hold for other people's point of view.  For all practical purposes you have become a single issue person in that you place this issue above all others and give it a moral imperative; others may not do either.  Thus, they will disagree with you on the issues, their priority, and who is the best to vote for on the whole over a larger general range of issues.  Personally, given the American system, I believe that voting is irrelevant and merely a ritualized exercise that most people engage in as an article of faith and optimism in order to pretend that they are participating in their governance.  As such, it is a spectator sport of sorts, which I believe to be a waste of time and resources. But just as the notion that voter's can be effective in the system and have their interests actually represented over those of the corporations and the establishment personnel is an accepted illusion, so is the notion that the average American really want to and is willing to do anything but bitch an illusion.  The average American fears change and does not want change if it is going to cost them anything to achieve it and it does not gain them personal immediate gratification.  We are a "me" country and not a "we" country.  We are a country that is narrow minded and focused on personal self-interests as individuals and as a country - screw everyone else and other countries if it means that our needs and desires are not the primary ones to bew looked after.

From: C. G. Estabrook 
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 9:58 PM
To: Laurie Solomon 
Cc: Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net ; Karen Medina 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Series...

Killing people is the most important thing the Obama administration is doing.

On 10/16/10 9:25 PM, Laurie Solomon wrote: 
  >But it's hard to understand people who say that they're against the war - and then vote against a Congressman who is one of the few voting against the war (and for a dissembling Democrat). Especially >when those people contend, as you do, that both parties are reactionary.

  It is not so hard to understand if they are neither single issue voters nor voters who view stopping the war as the most important issue over all others as you do.  If they are looking at and balancing the costs and benefits across several issues or have other issues which are of equal or higher priority than the one you see as being paramount, then it is quite possible that they will select to support the candidate who is the lesser of evils on balance across all THEIR high priority issues or decide to not vote at all if they think that the persons running for office cannot be trusted with respect to those issues that THEY deem of priority to them. People tend to act more or less rationally using "good enough for all my practical purposes at hand" logic rather than an abstract zero-sum optimizing logic and they tend to act practically not ideologically with a focus on immediate personal short term interests.

  From: C. G. Estabrook 
  Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 8:04 PM
  To: Corey Mattson 
  Cc: Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net ; Karen Medina 
  Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Series...

  The only way the Obama administration will reverse its war policy is if it's forced to by a cut-off of funds.  That eventually happened to the Nixon administration in regard to Vietnam and to the Reagan administration in regard to Central America - admittedly after they'd killed hundreds of thousands.  The Obama administration needs to be treated the same way.

  In each case the growth of votes against the war in Congress was quite slow.  Then as now, the populace was much further left than the Congress. But it's hard to understand people who say that they're against the war - and then vote against a Congressman who is one of the few voting against the war (and for a dissembling Democrat). Especially when those people contend, as you do, that both parties are reactionary.

  And, believe me, such votes will be noticed.  Look at, e.g., Michael Barone's Almanac of American Politics.

  On 10/16/10 6:29 PM, Corey Mattson wrote: 
I really doubt that the very few anti-war people voting for Johnson would be read as a signal by the government. ...And calling for a vote for a reactionary is disorienting to our allies and potential allies in building a peace movement. Johnson is anti-immigrant, from what I can tell by press releases. Should we strengthen ties with the immigrant rights movement and other working people? I believe we should, which would entail not supporting anti-immigrant, anti-worker politicians.

---Corey

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 16, 2010, at 10:36 AM, "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:

I agree with your contempt for both business parties, but Johnson is actually voting against war funding - one of the few in Congress to do so, and Gill has not promised to do the same. ( I doubt that he would - if per impossibile he were elected, he'd be a safe vote for the administration.) Johnson is worth a vote as a signal to the federal government that there is a growing opposition to its killing people for oil in the Mideast. --CGE

On 10/16/10 9:59 AM, Corey Mattson wrote:
I think we can all agree that elections won't now end the wars, that it will take a strong anti-war movement. I'm not voting for either Gill or Johnson because they are in business parties that have absolutely no accountability except to their paymasters. In Minnesota, Keith Ellison was an antiwar politician in the actual movement, who promised to vote against war funding, until he got elected and took his orders from Pelosi. It doesn't even matter what they promise.

I agree with those who won't support Johnson. He and his party are not on our side. If Gill were a politician who ran on a working-class ticket, a labor party or something like it on the left, that was accountable to a real party platform, he would get my vote. To his credit, he went against the party establishment supporting single-payer. Here in Blm-Normal, he disagreed publicly with MoveOn supporters in their support for Obama's health insurance reform, saying that it was bad enough to hope that it would not pass. In my view, from his work on single-payer, he counts as a movement activist, explaining his anti-establishment position on this issue. But, again, his running in a party only answering to corporate interests settles it for me.
--- Corey

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 15, 2010, at 9:48 PM, Karen Medina<kmedina67 at gmail.com>  wrote:

Nevertheless TJ is a reliable anti-war vote.
Oh, Israel's war does not count in The War.
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