First, who the F**K asked you pieces of trash for any advice?
Here are the human trash who signed the note: Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert
First question: Noam, when are you going to admit that you used your position at MIT to steer students to the CIA?
We've tried to be kind about this, Noam. We know you are death's door. But you keep lying and tricking people, so let's be honest. You remained at MIT because you were a government asset who repeatedly steered students to the CIA. You would first contact the CIA and discuss the student, then you would help set up the meeting. You wrongly assumed that every student would want to work with the CIA.
Noam, you want to get honest now?
Then there's Leslie Cagan. Leslie, shave your hairy chin. After that, grasp that we don't listen to whores and you're a whore. You're a damn dirty whore who used the Iraq War as a get-out-the-vote operation and then shut down United For Peace And Justice immediately after the 2008 election when Barack Obama got elected.
The Iraq War hasn't ended. You haven't done a damn thing for Iraq.
You're a lying whore who used the people of Iraq for election propaganda so shut your whore mouth and fall to your knees so you can pray for forgiveness.
We doubt it will be forthcoming.
Michael Albert, you are as useless as anyone can be. Bill Fletcher, we haven't taken you seriously since you insisted our noting your politics in 2008 was the same as McCarthyism. Bill, can you step out of your closet -- and maybe help Michael do the same.
Kathy Kelly, you're inspirational aspirational garbage hasn't ended any wars or helped any of the victims. We could argue that a person couldn't be more useless than you've been your entire life unless they were actually trying to be that useless.
Babsy Ehrenreich. Mother of the s**thole who, as part of Barack's administration, pushed for journalists to be licensed. You have raised trash because you are trash, Babsy. You're disgusting trash. Why don't you go waste more time freaking out over people's religion? That is what you do, right?
And then there's Norman Solomon.
It was just last week, in "TV: Do not feed the beast," that Ava and C.I. were explaining Norman Solomon should come with a warning label.
Norman, we watched you run away from Iraq to support Barack Obama. Do you think we forgive that?
We also saw you turn Lt. Erhen Watada's case into a side issue as you argued he should do this or that to save your friend (who writes for IN THESE TIMES now -- and maybe we should say 'friend' -- #MeToo anyone?). Ehren Watada was fighting for his belief that the Iraq War was illegal. He was fighting a brave fight. He didn't need to drop his fight -- which took place in the military courts -- to pursue whatever b.s. you had created, Norman.
You are obviously trash, Norman.
It's not your business what the Green Party does. No one asked you.
You are the most damaging group of people that could ever exist. The only thing that would make you worse is ever your peer was still present: Tom Hayden. Luckily for Tom, he died before the rise of #MeToo.
You and Tom were "Progressives for Obama" -- remember that f**ked up group? They never held his feet to the fire after he got the nomination nor did they hold him accountable in his 8 years as president.
They're a useless piece of trash group.
Noam, you should have stayed out of it. But you thought you could get away with it -- kind of like the way you thought your could refer students to the CIA and go your entire life without ever being called on it.
F**k you, Noam.
At DISSIDENT VOICE, Myles Hoenig notes:
One of the most insidious, and extremely anti-democratic and nearly authoritarian arguments that Chomsky et al. make is the one that how a person votes should be based on who owns those votes. It matters little if a person votes for their interests, values, or their conscience. Party trumps the individual. The “founding fathers” opposed the idea of political parties, but that’s where we are today. Yet it has taken on such a controlling factor over the citizenry that these powerful institutions have supplanted the role of the individual. Together, the two parties represent less than half the registered voters and even less of all eligible voters, yet have a near absolute control of the electoral process. It is these two parties that control who votes and in particular, which party, which particular point of view for Wall Street, can be represented in an election.
In many ways, the 2016 disaster for the Democrats mirrored the 2000 debacle. There is little doubt that Hillary Clinton was a horrible campaigner and candidate, probably even more so than Gore. And like the previous election, it wasn’t their fault they lost to Trump. Chomsky et al. pin it all on Jill Stein taking votes away from Clinton in Pennsylvania and other ‘guaranteed’ states for her. It is true that if the Stein votes in these states went to Clinton she would have won. Where in the letter does it say if the Gary Johnson votes went to Trump, he might have even won a plurality? Of course that’s not included, as it would be too much of a balanced argument to make.
The authors make their best attempt at gas lighting by pointing out the refusal “to acknowledge the special danger of Trump.” Clearly, Hillary Clinton was harmless. Hillary Clinton loved all people equally, especially our “predators” and “deplorables.” What was the joke back in 1980 about what glows in the dark in the Middle East? Answer was: Iran minutes after Reagan is sworn in. How many of us feared the same for Russia with a Clinton win? How many saw Trump as taking on the establishment and corporate power when his opponent exemplified the very same? Sure. Trump was and is dangerous as he marketed himself as the opposite of Clinton when in many ways he was merely an extension of her and so many of his crimes were similarly committed by Clinton and Obama. (Trump’s emoluments, the Clinton Global Initiative. Trump murdering Soleimani; Clinton/Obama murdering Gadaffi and young son, and many civilians through drone attacks. Trump’s open racism; Clinton and her “predators” and support of mass incarceration of people of color. Etc.)
Another problem with the letter is the analysis of the strength of the Green Party. Yes the “safe state” strategy of David Cobb nearly destroyed the Green Party nationwide, but the Stein campaign brought ballot access back to where it once was. The open-letter authors acknowledge that if the Green Party plays it safe again in this election, they “will pay a price for not running in contested states.” Their gas lighting admonition is that Greens should “notice the infinitely bigger price that millions and even billions of people will pay for Trump winning.” No acknowledgement of how the Democratic Party pretty much gave us Trump through the pied piper strategy, or the rigging of the election against Sanders, and of course their choice being the only person in America who could lose to Trump, but this time, don’t be fooled. The Democrats are the real deal and the antidote to Trump. And with their Democrat to win, there will be peace and love between the bald eagle and the bear. (Even Sanders has proven to be a Russophobe.)
Lastly, this is an election. It’s a way for a citizen in a free country to voice their choice for president. Despite the electoral process being rigged against any choice but Wall Street’s, who the Democrats nominate will be a factor in who wins in 2020. Choose Sanders, and it’s almost guaranteed many grassroots Greens will vote for him. For example, here in the state of Maryland, we actually had a state chair for the Green Party brag about how he switched parties just so he could vote for Sanders in the 2016 primary. As treacherous as that was, being an actual spokesperson for the Party, the rank-and-file Greens, here in Maryland as well as elsewhere, are very much in Sanders’s camp, and it’s their right to be so. If the nomination goes to Biden because of the Democrats’ repeated treachery against their own progressive voters, then it begs the questions: Is this even a democracy worth fighting for? Trump will win in a landslide, but of course it will be the Green Party to blame. It always is.
Cindy Sheehan notes:
For you all to even hint that Clinton would have been a better choice is ludicrous. In my opinion, people who voted for Jill Stein (the 2016 Green POTUS nominee) in "Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan" and not for Trump or Clinton did not "cost" Ms. War Criminal the election, at all. After eight years of a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top and other neo-liberal policies of the Obama regime that saw the war machine grow dramatically and US imperialism blossom like a metastatic cancer, Democrats LOST those states. Honestly, Stein got a little over 1% of the vote nationally in 2016 and if the Democrats couldn't nominate someone that could overcome that small percentage and beat the ridiculous game show host that entered the race on a lark, no wonder they and you pathetic sycophants are searching everywhere for an answer that doesn't point a laser focus right back on them.
Also, it appears that you authors/signers of the above referenced letter support the monster Hillary Clinton! I cannot really say enough about her evilness and this alone makes me question the credibility and the motives of you neo-liberals responsible for this dreck.
You rely on those tired and already debunked canards of blaming the Greens for 2000 and 2016 and not the system of rigged voting machines, winner-take-all, massive amounts of campaign money, or any of the other Electoral Industrial Complex bullshit that have been designed from the beginning to keep the people's voices out and put either a Trump or Clinton up on top.
The Green Party should do what its members want. And the American people need more choices, not less. The country needs ranked voting. No one needs advice from a bunch of s**theads who pretended to give a damn about the Iraq War and then walked away from it.
Remember, you own your vote. No one else, just you. If someone earns your vote, great, vote for them. If they don't earn your vote, that's on them. They're the candidate. They're the one who is supposed to be winning your vote. If they're not doing that, that's on them.
