The two party system: an evil worse than a Clinton evil | PirateTimes

Posted: June 13, 2016/Under: Creator, Guest Author, Guest Opinion, News/By: Guest Author

The two party system: an evil worse than a Clinton evil

June 13, 2016 · by Guest Author · in Guest Opinion

This is an opinionated guest post from Marianne Hoynes, activist and independent journalist.

I am so shocked by my friends on Facebook who are adamant that Hillary Clinton is a better candidate than Donald Trump. We are poised on the very edge of the horror show that is the TTIP, which will harm not only the US but all of Europe. Hillary will do a Libya and a Syria to the rest of the non- Saudi Arab world. She will perpetuate poverty in the US, supporting her husbands disastrous ‘welfare reform’ and NAFTA. She is the darling of Wall Street and Monsanto. What are you thinking?

My friends, you are living under a blanket of false propaganda, that there is an evil worse than a Clinton evil. That we have a two party system. That votes in this country are actually counted. How can you stand for a candidate that will perpetuate the slaughter of innocents and the further destruction of not only our economy, but the economies of countries all over the world?

Don’t just take my word for it. LOOK, I mean really LOOK at her record. Talk to your international friends, because their press is not so censored, and they have more clarity because they do not live under the blanket of US propaganda.

This election will affect the global food supply as well as our own, global economies as well as our own, fracking and oil spills destroying our drinking water and the life blood of our animal co-inhabitants on this earth, world peace, the death of what’s left of our crumbling middle class, growing fascism. That is what you get with Hillary.

Yes, do vote. Why not? Vote for the candidate that stands for the needs of the people. Write in your choice. Vote Green. Vote Bernie, vote Stein. Send the message. And then exercise the last power that we the people have. BOYCOTT.

Bring the power structure to its knees. Yes, it will cause you some discomfort. Perhaps it will be a bit more work. But we will have a revolution with strong, peaceful acts like boycotting the corporations that have taken over the power structure, or we will have a bloody revolution which I can assure you will cause you greater discomfort, or we will live on our knees begging for the same crumbs, distracted by our iPhones, thinking we are getting a deal when the toxic fish or beef or tomatoes go on sale at the grocery store.

With all of this said, for those Americans like myself who could never vote for the likes of Hillary Clinton, I have watched state after state in this primary report voter fraud on the part of the democrats. After 120,000 registered, active voters had their voter registration information in just Bernie Sanders’ home town purged from the NY State computer system, one woman was selected as the sacrificial lamb, and fired from her job.

Ultimately there will be no true justice in this election for the disenfranchised on both sides of the aisle. We can only hope that with sheer will and determination, we can keep the most dangerous of our options out of the White House.

Marianne Hoynes is a second generation social activist, a health care lobbyist on Capitol Hill on behalf of patients and doctors, and an independent journalist and fine artist. She has written on many topics including Veterans for Peace, Occupy Wall Street, NDAA, Political prisoners like Jeremy Hammond and Chelsea Manning, and Icelandic politics.

Original text is on her FB profile

Featured image: Modified from CC-BY, CarbonNYC [in SF!]

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Tags: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Occupy movement, USA

- c3o
  
  Claiming that Clinton is a “more dangerous option” for US President than Trump is a ridiculous trivialization of the most megalomaniac, unabashedly openly racist, violence-inciting proto-Fascist ever to run for that office. I’m all for working on fundamental reform, but casting an invalid write-in vote or any other that helps Trump become President will do exactly nothing to “bring the power structure to its knees”. I also don’t understand what this is supposed to have to do with Pirate politics – time to unfollow.
  - - Deuce_2112
      
      You don’t get why Clinton is a bad choice? The Kool-Aid is strong in you.
      - c3o
        
        I did not make the statement you believe I did.
  - - Jelena Jovanovic
      
      An honest vote for Bernie or Stein is far from enabling Trump to “become President”, as you say. That political calculator is the devious thing of our times, and reminds me of false premisses in my part of Europe
      – not voting is voting (war is peace, etc)
      – not voting for our candidate helps the candidate you hate (in other words, candidates you can trust are worthless for our oligarchy, we’ll win)
      
      Nope. Thats not what democracy is about. People should be able to cast vote (or abstain from voting, if they want, and if its their informed decision).
      
      I dont think you should “unfollow” unless its the new way hipster
      culture deals with differences in opinion and / or opinionated articles.
  - - trwnh
      
      The Clintons are THE megalomaniacal family of DC. Trump is openly racist, while the Clintons are closetedly racist. Trump doesn’t incite violence so much as make it visible, because I assure you that we minorities have suffered before the rise of Trump. Charges of fascism are too strong, as Trump is just another par-for-the-course politician. Write-in and third-party votes do not “help Trump” unless the only two candidates are Trump and Clinton, or the race is marginally close between them (within 10,000 votes, perhaps). Using your democratic voice on an alternative rather than throwing it away by not voting or by voting for the two-party system without affecting the outcome will add momentum to the rise of viable competition and thus amplifying the message and easing potential reform. The sources on Clinton are easily found by searching Google, if you are skeptical of any particular claim (do your research, as it says). Pirate politics are all about liberty for the people and freedom from the power structure, so this fits right in.
      - Rasmus Outzen
        
        Not defending Trump’s draconian race baiting etc., but I’m advocating some realism to why the media and the imperial system actually hates Trump. This is why (you can be a maverick fascist and challenge another fascism: imperialism):
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rI5fGfl5OI&t=2h08m48s
  - - Rasmus Outzen
      
      Zero sources divided by none:
      http://hillaryisaneocon.com/
      - c3o
        
        Hillary is an interventionist imperialist, just like all other US presidents before her. That’s obvious, regrettable, and also hardly a departure from the status quo. She would unfortunately not have a snowball’s chance in hell and wouldn’t have gotten to where she is if she, especially as a woman, appeared “weak” on the (objectionable!) use of America’s military. She’s also, for the US mainstream, quite progressive on most other issues. She will appoint Supreme Court justices that will generally uphold civil rights. And, yes, her election as the first woman will open doors to women with less “hawkish” foreign policy positions to eventually follow.
        
        Trump, on the other hand, advocates a nuclear South Korea. He wants to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS. He wants to torture people “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” with no due process. He continuously attacks the freedom of the press, Americans of muslim faith, women and whoever else crosses him. He’s a racist, narcissistic schoolyard bully whose election would be an unprecedented danger to the world.
        
        In a broken electoral system like the US’, you can’t fix the world with your vote. The only option voting affords you is preventing the even worse. That’s why you need to focus on working outside that system to change it – but a Nader vote that ends up electing Bush over Gore doesn’t make progress, quite the opposite. It’s a totally different situation than in the representative elections in which Pirate Parties (most of them with at least equally fringe appeal as, say, Jill Stein) usually run.
        
        Clinton will be a typical US president, with all that entails. That’s no cause to celebrate. At the same time, she is the obvious choice (An argument can be made for voting for Stein in safe blue states; if that makes the voter feel better). And she is continuously subjected to sexist standards and exaggerated, contradictory smear campaigns from both the left and right. It is these that I reject.

- Jelena Jovanovic
  
  Loved this part
  “Yes, do vote. Why not? Vote for the candidate that stands for the needs of the people.
  Write in your choice. Vote Green. Vote Bernie, vote Stein. Send the
  message. And then exercise the last power that we the people have.
  BOYCOTT.”