Millennial's Guide to November, Part 2
Here are your choices for President.
Jill Stein (G) and Gary Johnson (L)
I'm not going to say much about these two, as neither of them can win or even come close at this point. They'll need to gain some House and Senate seats before having the opportunity to compete for President effectively. They are protest candidates and cannot break out at this time. The most they will be able to muster up is about 5% each. The Green Party candidate is more aligned with the Democratic Party, and would take away a full 5% of the vote away from Hillary Clinton, giving the Presidency to Trump. The Libertarian candidate, in any normal election, would take away votes evenly between Democrats and Republicans, however, this is not a normal election. A vote for either of these candidates is a vote for Trump, and that's a risk we cannot afford to take.
When Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate ran on principle in 2000, nobody expected their protest vote to cost 5000 American lives along with up to half a million Iraqi lives in a war that should not have been. They also didn't expect the George W Bush to walk away from the Kyoto Protocol, and climate change action to stall global initiatives on global warming. This, with the additional oil production over those years, and increases in CO2 emissions has cost a "several decade" delay in our attempt to correct the changing climate. This will have cost trillions of dollars in damage in coastal areas by the time it becomes too apparent to do anything about fast enough, and perhaps thousands of species of animals going extinct. Congratulations on their protest vote, but the responsibility for those lives, in my opinion, are on the hands of the Republican voters as well as the Nader voters. Nader ran again in 2004, where Bush won a second term, even though he was highly believed to be guilty of war crimes by then. Nader focused on war crimes during his campaign, and managed to take 100% of his votes from Kerry. While I believe that we need a third party, my hope is that the third party draws evenly from Republican and Democratic platforms, so as not to freely give Presidential elections to right-wing extremists.
Elections have consequences. Candidates and issues need to be studied and elections taken seriously for a democracy to work properly. The voters choose the Captain as well as the crew. The Captain sets the heading, but without a crew willing to fire up the engines and turn the wheel, the heading remains that same. A vote for Stein or Johnson isn't just a protest vote. The risk of countless avoidable deaths and massive environmental damage by allowing a nut case to win the White House is there. It's just too great a risk to take. If it were Romney running on the Republican side, maybe the risk wouldn't be as high, but it is Trump.
Donald J. Trump (Republican)
Trump has no coherent platform. Fear and Hate is all I see there. Close the border, leave NATO, support Putin, Assad, and Jung-un. Carpet bomb civilians, torture people, add $30 trillion to the national debt through tax breaks for billionaires, eliminate the minimum wage, etc. Why ANYBODY is supporting this narcissist is beyond me.
For two decades, Republicans have engaged heavily in obstructionism, racism, sexism, fake conspiracies, warmongering, fear mongering, wasting many millions of taxpayer dollars on investigations designed for nothing more than political gain. Daily insults against the President of the United States, treasonous action to attack the President worldwide, and working hard to harm the American people in the hopes that the voters would blame the President. The Republican Party created Donald J. Trump all on their own, and deserves him.
Trump embodies the entire GOP platform over the last eight years. The only difference is that he’s vocal about it. In order for the Republican Party to either change or fade away, Trump needed to win the nomination, followed by a landslide defeat in the general election, along with massive losses in the Senate and House of Representatives. Trump won the nomination because the other sixteen Republican candidates were terrible, combined with two billion dollars of free air time. Now, the GOP is stuck with the toxic stink that they created. The only thing left was for them to admit that they are Trump, and to get down on their knees before him. One by one, the same guys that told the truth about Trump in the primaries have bent over for him to do as he pleases with them. It is sickening, but entertaining at the same time.
By endorsing Trump, the Republican Party is forever tied to Trump in his lack of both domestic and foreign affairs knowledge, stuck with his racism, sexism, economic nightmare philosophy, nuclear proliferation stance, and fascism. This is the start of the final chapter in Republican politics as we know it. They are all Trump, and they must wear the stench through November as well as throughout history.
Then and only then, assuming a total bashing by the electorate, the Republican Party will have two choices. Change and stop their fourth grade baby games, or simply fade away.
Hillary Clinton
A vote for Clinton is a vote for Sanders. 90% of their platforms cross over, and Sanders has clearly changed the direction of a Clinton administration. Some Sanders supporters still don't trust Hillary, but just about all of the scandals, originally initiated by right-wing pundits and leaders have been debunked. Back in the mid 1990’s, David Brock, a conservative Republican writer, known as a right-wing political hit man, attacked the Clinton’s with scandal after scandal. The rhetoric has been repeated for the last 25 years, yet each and every scandal has been debunked by fact-checkers and investigators throughout. The attacks and the vicious lies and exaggerations continue through today. When Hillary was serving as Senator and then Secretary of State, the attacks waned for a while, and Hillary’s approval rating shot all the way up to 66% as her good work nationally and on the world stage were on full display. Brock’s articles were designed to discredit Bill Clinton and de-legitimize his Presidency, as well as quash any political aspirations of Hillary Clinton, as her path was becoming evident. He later recanted his own articles, is now a Hillary Clinton supporter. He is also the founder of “Media Matters”. Brock now admits that he was part of a right-wing conspiracy to smear Bill and Hillary with false information. In his book “Killing the Messenger,” Brock admits the Republican conspiracy in what he describes as “a steady infiltration of mainstream by the right-wing factories of disinformation”.
FLIP-FLOPPING
Claims of her flip-flopping are highly exaggerated. There is a difference between a flip-flop and a simple FLIP. To be able to change your opinion or position on a topic when faced with all of the evidence, and in the context of social evolution, shows flexibility and intelligence. A flip-flop, by definition, would suggest that her opinion switches back and forth, depending on the audience that she is speaking to. Such is not the case with Clinton.
Just 10 years ago, the vast majority of Americans were against gay marriage. To suggest that Hillary changed her position to pander is to insult and discredit the tens of thousands of LGBT activists who have fought so hard to educate the public. Hillary, along with most of America, softened and changed their views on LGBT rights. She has always stood up for LGBT rights as being human rights. What she flipped on was marriage only.
TPP
Early on, Hillary was assigned the task of developing the framework of the Trans Pacific Partnership. The task was to protect American workers and create a set of rules for trade. After leaving the State Department, compromises were made by the Obama administration which veered away from the original framework. Hillary was for the TPP when she was designing it. As the campaign progressed, she wisely said that she would like to read the final draft before committing to support or rejection. After reading the text of the final agreement, she could no longer support the agreement as written. She still believes that we need trade deals, but that the trade deals need more protection for American workers. There is nothing wrong with changing your opinion when the criteria changes.
WARMONGERING
Nothing could be further from the truth. Hillary has consistently used brains over braun in dealing with the challenges of the Middle-East and North Africa. No new wars were started under the Obama administration, yet an increase in the use of sanctions, targeted drone strikes to defeat ISIS, and negotiating from a position of strength has been used. Clinton is no pushover, and will not allow any nation to bully the United States, however, she has proven time and time again that military force should be a last resort. All you need to do is look at her record.
IRAQ VOTE
The vote in question was a vote to authorize the use of force in the event that Hussein fails to destroy his chemical and nuclear weapons, and allow unfettered access for U.N. inspectors to verify. It worked, and Hussein agreed to allow unfettered access, however, the conspiracy here is clearly lies with the Bush administration, and a rush to war ensued. The majority of Americans at home, in the House and Senate were lied to by the Bush/Cheney administration. Dick Cheney stated as FACT that Iraq had nuclear weapons, and planned to destroy the United States with them. Colin Powell stood before the United Nations, laying out evidence of chemical weapons, selling this as FACT. As we now know, all of the evidence was false, and the war in Iraq which killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's was all about oil, weapons and military supply profits. Dick Cheney's Halliburton made $40 billion off of the war, and Cheney personally profited somewhere between $30 and $100 million dollars.
The false scandals are plentiful, the attacks continue and are sold as fact to the public, with the objective of creating a plausibility in the minds of the electorate. Each and every fake scandal has been debunked, but as Mark Twain stated, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”. But in the digital age, a good lie can permeate through cyberspace and be shared millions of times before the truth has a chance to begin to fight back.
Hillary Clinton has the experience, intelligence, and proven results at a time when humanity really needs a strong leader. By year 2100, Earths temperature will have risen by three degrees over the last century, putting islands and low-lying coastal communities under water. Thousands of species of animals will become extinct, and up to a billion people will be displaced without immediate action. Terrorists are trying to take over nations, and countries are trying to obtain nuclear weapons. The world economy continues to be on edge from the global financial melt-down of 2008, and the gaps in so many aspects of life in the United States and around the world seem to widen with each and every false statement and fear mongering by conservative pundits. Glass half empty or glass half full? We choose the latter, and believe that Hillary Clinton has prepared herself for this moment in human history better and longer than any candidate in history.
We’re at a crossroads of sorts in the evolution of human history. One path leads to a cliff, and it’s a long way down. The other path leads to possibilities and cooperation to heal many of mans self-inflicted wounds. This is an opportunity that I certainly hope the electorate wakes up to, and give DESTINY a chance to do it’s thing. It is time for us to RISE, and reject the witch-hunt once and for all. There is an unemployed man in Michigan, a polar bear in the Arctic, a whale in the Pacific, and a 5 year old girl in Indonesia counting on us to make the right decision.
“We can either FALL together, or we can choose to RISE together. The choice is ours.” – Hillary Clinton.
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