With the 2016 election clanking to its completion, like a car with a malfunctioning transmission, I’ve taken a different tack the last few weeks—disengagement—imbibing next to nothing from the mainstream. My inner environment has been almost tranquil. Rather than alienation and discouragement, removing myself from the ongoing dysfunctional din of reality has been a positive and necessary corrective.
Just because someone demands that you see the world one, or two ways, doesn’t mean that you have to. Binary thinking leaves you dead-ended, painted into a corner.
If voting mattered…
Over the weekend, I picked up several books that seemed to be waiting for me on my local library shelves. These books provided historical context, as well as reminding me of perspectives I hadn’t considered in quite some time.
What I found fascinating in reading about America’s history of radical politics, was the role of European immigrants in bringing socialist, Marxist, and anarchist perspectives to these shores. What I’ve also been ruminating about is why the town where I grew up—with many immigrants from Europe—was and continues to be a place where conservative values reign supreme. This is a topic that I’m likely to come back to at some point.
As for today’s election, I found a quote (posted at the end of my post) from Patrick Martin’s perspective piece at the World Socialist Website to be as pertinent as any I’ve read over the past several months. It pretty much sums up my thoughts today as I head to the polls to at least vote for a few local issues. I’ll also be refraining from voting for the two corporate candidates, Clinton and Trump.
The ongoing pretzel logic offered by liberals for why all leftists should vote for Clinton is vapid at best. At other times, their moral posturing in supporting Hillary’s been infuriating. Even a publication like Dissent, longtime supporters of democratic socialism, have taken to offering convoluted calls to pull the lever for a neoliberal, warmonger like Clinton. From an older blog I no longer post at, you can see not much has changed in eight years, including my own personal views on “Thing 1,” or “Thing 2.”
I wonder if intelligence and our capacity to stretch our minds is related to physical activity. The more you push your capacity—the more you can accomplish.
Working people must draw the necessary conclusions. It is impossible to fight the capitalist class through the two-party system that it controls. The working class must build its own political party to defend its own class interests. This requires a political break, not only with the Democratic Party, but with all those organizations and political tendencies that defend, apologize for and cover up for the Democratic Party.
Happy Election Day!!