Last week, it was as though we were back in WWII and YOUTUBE was WARNER BROTHERS churning out Bette Davis dramas. In fact, the term "drama queen" seemed far too weak to describe what was happening in original videos and in reaction ones.
Early on, it seemed the big story would be Jimmy Dore and Cornel West. The politician who is trying to become the Green Party's presidential nominee (the party will decide on who that will be in the summer of 2024) went on the program hosted by the self-described "pot head comedian in his garage."
And what ensued? The fur flew. Meow and counter-meow.
And then pretty much the entire YOUTUBE seemed ready to lynch Jimmy Dore.
We're not Jimmy Dore fans. He's a transphobe and he sported that transphobia in his interview of Cornel. That said, we really can't co-sign on to the bulk of the criticism of Jimmy.
THE VANGUARD boys were appalled. How could anyone speak to Cornel like that! They wrung their hands dramatically like Miriam Hopkins trying to steal focus from Bette in OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
Cornel may be your hero but Cornel is now running for office. Dr Jared Bell of BLACK POWER MEDIA long ago -- months ago -- observed that meant Cornel was now on a different field and would have to be judged differently. THE VANGUARD boys -- and so many others -- missed that memo.
Jimmy Dore pressed him, Jimmy Dore disagreed with him. Jimmy Dore voiced his displeasure with Cornel to Cornel's face.
What's the problem?
Independent media existed long before YOUTUBE and it has always called out the softball questions to politicians and the bowing and scraping the media does before politicians.
We're not Jimmy fans. We'd love to rip him apart. But the reality is, he did a hard interview.
Why are you whining that an interviewer pressed and challenged a politician?
That's beyond stupid and it reeks of hypocrisy.
The segment is "Cornel West SHUTS DOWN Jimmy Dore and CALLS HIM OUT in HEATED Exchange." You know how to find it. We're not posting anyone in here.
Cornel and Jimmy were in most conflict over the issue of appealing to voters.
We're not Cornel supporters, by the way, but Cornel gave an impressive performance when he was reacting to Jimmy. He showed strength and he showed character and we haven't seen that in his previous interviews where he's too busy trying to be smooth and likable.
So Jimmy wants Cornel to get these mythical voters from the right. Jimmy's convinced that, somehow, these right-wingers are going to abandon the GOP and the Libertarian Party and get on board with a Marxist candidate if only Cornel would stop talking about race and about trans and about ---
Cornel's not really spoken of trans people before that interview. He gets a lot of credit for things he hasn't done. Don't tell us what he wrote 20 years ago. That's 20 years ago, first off, and second, he's a politician right now. So he should be addressing a number of issues.
Unless you're Jimmy Dore. And if you're Jimmy Dore, you insist that Cornel, an African-American man, could get the support of right-wing voters if he didn't mention race.
Are these mythical right-wingers blind?
Do they not see Cornel's skin color? Because if raising the very real issue of racism is going to run them off, we're having a hard time figuring out how Cornel's skin color or his Marxist views aren't going to run them off as well.
Jimmy says that Cornel should focus on economic issues. Cornel, rightly, responds that you can't talk economic issues without noting racism or transphobia or homophobia. And he says he's not going to turn his back on any disadvantaged group which, for us, was the applause line. Again, that Cornel is someone we want to hear from. Not the one making smooth talk with "brother so and so and sister mojo, let me tell you about when Isaac Hayes high-fived Donnie Hathaway and I know all the kids out there are going to want to hear this so tell them to turn down their Tony! Toni! Tone! albums and listen to me for a moment."
If what is takes to get Cornel fired up and passionate is an uncomfortable interview then his supporters on YOUTUBE have failed him letting him given one snooze-inducing interview after another.
Zac and Gavin wanted you to know that Jimmy's position was part of his grift. And that may be, we certainly believe Jimmy is a grifter. But is what Jimmy was arguing really that different from what Zac and Gavin argue for? We find Jimmy's remarks offensive. But we also found Zac and Gavin offensive praising Marianne Williamson two weeks ago for failing to defend trans people to Bill Maher as being smart and effective campaigning and how great it was that she didn't get bogged down in that issue. Do they not grasp their hypocrisy, after those remarks, in now calling out Jimmy Dore's remarks? (See Marcia's "My rant about the boys of THE VANGUARD.")
Over on THE CONVO COUCH, Craig Pasta was also bothered by Jimmy's interview. He was bothered by what Cornel said and he had someone named "Cheese" babbling on about nothing next to him.
Watching Craig, we were reminded of how close he and Jimmy were in terms of political positions. During the Trump era, they thought you could peel Trump supporters away from him by pointing to economic issues. They still argued that in 2020. But at some point, the road they were on was no longer about building a bridge. Instead, it became about creating islands and they are the ones sewing division now. They pretend that they want a big tent but you can't have a big tent with racists.
That was our problem with their faux action last February when they thought it was okay to 'fauxtest' against one war (ignore the rest, clearly) by bringing neo-Nazis and KKK-ers to DC. It was 'building your base' by spitting in the face of the actual base. Your supposed big tent was actually pushing people outside the tent.
They think they're radicals -- Craig, Jimmy and their kind. They're not radicals.
James Carville is not a radical and they're work that is supposedly so fresh and innovative is nothing more than Carville's "It's the economy, stupid!" slogan of 1992.
That was how to cobble together a victory for Bill Clinton.
It wasn't radical. Radical would have been Bill standing up for people in need. Instead, he executed Ricky Ray Rector. He also did what Jimmy and others want Cornel to do: Slam an African-American so the White racists will trust you. For Bill, it was attack Sister Souljah.
These steps and the others that the Craigs and Jimmys advocate for do not help build a bridge, do not help anything. It's short-term thinking. That we have to be the ones to call them out on this is rather sad. All week long, one show after another on YOUTUBE rushed to weigh in on the Jimmy Dore interview of Cornel West but no one dared to point out that Jimmy and company's 'strategy' is just how-do-you-peel-off undecideds? Not how do you energize the base, not how do you build a genuine coalition.
Also no one seems to want to point out that Jimmy is doing identity politics. His is playing the White straight male card. And anything that takes attention away from that is "identity politics." The group in charge imposed what was the norm on others and any challenge to that norm becomes "identity politics." They're the ones promoting divisions, imposing divisions and screeching, anytime the spotlight is not 100% on them, "Identity politics!"
There is so much in the Jimmy Dore and Cornel West interview that we could go over but we don't have the time to churn out a tome. Had the week not then seen another YOUTUBE nightmare -- Krystal Ball and Kyle Kulinski debating Briahna Joy Gray -- that we also need to comment on, maybe we could. But THE VANGUARD boys embarrassed themselves over that and so much more.
So, briefly, let's give Jimmy Dore credit for two things. First, he did not kiss ass in this interview. Good for him. You shouldn't be fawning over politicians to begin with. And if that means Zac has to spit out "the audacity!" and play Bette Davis, so be it. Second, Jimmy held Cornel accountable for holding Donald Trump to a higher standard than he held Joe Biden too.
This especially angered Zac and Gavin, this criticism. 2016 Jill Stein voters, the boys just couldn't get it.
Sorry, Jimmy was exactly right on that. And Jill Stein is the best proof of the harm that does. In 2012, she toyed at running for president but all she did was rescue Barack Obama over and over again. She was confronted face-to-face about Barack sending US troops back into Iraq in the fall of 2012 as he was strutting around lying that he had pulled all US troops out of Iraq (that never happened) and she was confronted with a physical copy of Tim Arango's report for THE NEW YORK TIMES. Did she say, 'Thank you?"
No, she tried to humor the young man and then she snapped at him when he felt Barack's lies -- about war -- shouldn't be ignored.
That's the real Jill Stein. And Zac and Gavin were probably too busy stroking their puds to know what was going on then and now that they're older, they're too busy jerking off to learn even a minute of history.
Barack promised, in 2008, all US troops out of Iraq. He made that promise at one campaign stop after another -- and in multiple commercials -- while running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. "We want to end the war and we want to end it now!" he thundered over and over to wild applause. He never delivered on that promise. Idiots like Tom Hayden, Barbara Ehrenreich, Laura Flanders, Carl Davidson and all the rest bought into his lie and furthered his lie -- they buried Samantha Power's declaration to BBC NEWS in March 2008 that Barack's campaign promise was, as she put it, not a real promise because he didn't know what he would do about Iraq if he became president. It wasn't a promise, it was, she said, "a best-case scenario."
Where were you during all of this VANGUARD boys? Trying to figure out why you were sprouting hairs down there?
Then it was 2012 and Barack was running for re-election and running on the lie that he'd kept his promise. He didn't. He didn't do it ten months as promised (ten months from being sworn in) and he didn't do it in terms of getting all US troops out of Iraq (but, other than us and Ted Koppel, it didn't seem anyone cared about that). Truth was on hold during Barack's first campaign to get him into office, it was on hold while he was in office and it was on hold when he ran for re-election.
And Jill Stein was one of those people.
And she refused to call him out for lying. At the end of September 2012, Tim Arango (NEW YORK TIMES) reported:
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could
result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on
training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to
General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently
deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with
intelligence.
And it wasn't just in the paper. A young man pointed it out to Jill Stein and presented her with a copy of the report and she ignored it. She refused to call Barack out in 2012 when he was lying to the American people as he campaigned of pulling US troops out Iraq, of "withdrawing." The people of Iraq suffered because of Jill and her refusal to address Iraq in 2012.
The Green Party is never going to win anything as long as it plays like the kid sister of the Democratic Party.
Now Zac and Gavin, 2016 Jill Stein supporters, will insist Jill was very vocal in 2016.
Yes,
she was. She hated Hillary Clinton. As did many others. And it was
okay to hate Hillary -- 2008 had made that clear -- specifically, the
2008 media had made that clear. She wasn't just attacked, she was accused of calling for Barack Obama's assassination -- Keith Olbermann made that claim on his MSNBC program. Not only was Hillary reviled, it was thought that there was no way in hell that Donald Trump could win the presidency. So Jill got the green traffic signal and went all out on Hillary. We've complained about many things over the years but we never complained that, in 2016, Jill campaigned by calling out the duopoloy -- both sides of it.
But, again, in 2012, when the Iraqi people could have benefited from a US presidential candidate calling out the lies about US troops in their country, Jill Stein refused to do so.
And when Barack faltered --
most infamously after the 9/11/13 attack in Benghazi -- Jill was there
to . . . attack Mitt Romney. Not to press for the Green Party, not to
argue that they wouldn't have had a CIA outpost masquerading as a
diplomatic facility in Benghazi to begin with. And that is what got
attacked. We knew that the first hearing on the Benghazi attack when US
House Rep Jason Chaffetz talked around and around and around this
point. We sat there, at the hearing, looking at one another, as he
talked about the strategic importance and the security and said, "So it
was a CIA outpost." As he kept talking about it and saying he couldn't talk about it and then talked about it more and then said they needed to go close door to talk about it -- on and on.
But that didn't concern Jill. No policy issue concerned her, just saving the election for Barack was her goal as she demonstrated with her own actions.
Jimmy is right. And the Green Party's candidate has historically done what he accused Cornel of doing. Is Cornel doing that? According to Zac and Gavin, who rush to defend Cornel, West is doing that. They defended it on the segment where they pretended to 'analyze' the exchange. So if Cornel is doing that, what's the problem with Jimmy calling him out on it?
What's the problem?
"How dare he!" was Zac's argument, eyes popping like Bette Davis about to insist to Jimmy, "It made me sick when I had to let you kiss me. I only did it because you begged me, you hounded me and drove me crazy! And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! Wipe my mouth!"
THE VANGUARD had another questionable segment last week. It was about how Briahna Joy Gray had invited Sabby Sabs on to BAD FAITH and Sabby had lied.
Well what else would Sabby do?
Hey, Sabby, tell us about your parents? You don't want to go there, do
you?
So Sabby was on with Bri-Bri and Sabby lied. And THE VANGUARD called her out and congratulated themselves for doing so.
But the cowardly boys of THE VANGUARD lied for Bri-Bri
Months ago, a ridiculous exchange took place on REVOLUTIONARY BLACK OUT. Sabby and the fat one had brought on Marianne Williamson and then, during the interview, the RBO homophobe and the one who rages out of control to the point that he's on the verge of tears joined the broadcast. Marianne was not being allowed to speak. She was asked questions and when she tried to answer them, she was cut off.
It was an awful interview.
And Zac and Gavin, last week, called Sabby Sabs out as she tossed aside facts and flat out lied over and over about what had happened. Zac and Gavin played segments of the interview that had not been played on BAD FAITH including Sabby herself expressing her anger and frustration over the way Marianne was ambushed.
Last week, on BAD FAITH, Sabby lied and said that things went bad because Marianne had accused one of the RBN males of "mansplaining."
Zac and Gavin played the clip of that and showed that Marianne was being cut off by the man when she tried to answer his question, she was being insulted by him and much more.
Now go check in real time, we didn't make this RBN interview the big issue of the year, the month or even the week. Why? Because politicians don't need to be fawned over. See, we're consistent.
The boys of THE VANGUARD? If they didn't have hypocrisy, what would those boys have besides maybe crotch rot?
They went to town on Sabby. And she deserved it. She lied. She flat out lied.
But the hypocrites of THE VANGUARD didn't go to town on Bri-Bri. They didn't even try to hold her accountable. This wasn't Sabby's program, it was Bri's. Sabby was on Bri's BAD FAITH.
The hypocrites know damn well that Sabby didn't select clips for Bri's show. Bri and her staff selected the clips they wanted to play. Bri was complicit in the lying. She took part in it before it ever aired as she determined what clips would air on her show and what clips wouldn't.
Bri lied. But THE VANGUARD gave her a pass -- that's something they do repeatedly for her and it's why they look like such hypocrites.
Let's just go over the scorecard real quick so far. 1) Jimmy Dore holds a politician accountable and they're ticked off by that. 2) Jimmy Dore notes that an attempt at a third party run (Cornel is not the Green Party's presidential candidate at this point) should not included 'My GOP opponent is the devil but I love my Democratic opponent!' 3) Sabby Sabs and Bri-Bri lie on BAD FAITH and VANGUARD boys are ticked off only by Sabs -- not by the host who took part in it and broadcast the lies (and she knew they were lies). Now they got it right regarding Jimmy Dore's offensive claims that the way the economy impacts White, straight men should be the focus of any attempt at a presidential campaign. We applaud them for what they got right.
But it's getting hard to endure all their wrongs.
Later in the week, Bri-Bri took her con job to Kyle and Krystal. And as usual, fan boyz Zac and Gavin felt Bri-Bri could do no wrong. Now they're either seriously deficient mentally or Zac and Gavin are liars. Because we want to believe the best of them, we'll assume they're just stupid and not intentionally lying.
Do you remember CHEERS? That was a smart sitcom when it started. And one of the jokes was Diane Chambers. Early audiences got that. They knew Shelley Long was playing a pretentious airhead. But then the crowd came in over the first summer (back in the old days, TV shows repeated in the summer) and, because Diane insisted she was smart, they decided she was. They never got most of the jokes because they never understood that Diane knew a lot of words but lacked basic sense and awareness and, no, she wasn't smart.
Bri-Bri? She knows a lot of words. She's not smart. She's a con artist. Zac and Gavin fall for it repeatedly and insist over and over that she's this great debater. They've done that for a long time now. She's not a good debater, she's a con artist. She's a cheap liar.
And she demonstrated that in her exchange with Krystal and Kyle. She didn't destroy them to anyone with a brain. She didn't make any solid points to anyone with a brain.
She proved she needed a hearing aid and apparently so do Zac and Gavin.
Let's note an exchange but let us first explain that Krystal and Kyle sat on one side of the table across from Briahna Joy Gray on the other side. This was so that they could look at each other while they spoke to each other. However, Bri frequently spoke while looking off to her left -- sometimes with her body turned to the left. She looked away from them while speaking. She turned her body away from them. That was a very hostile action and it's strange that two people on THE VANGUARD watch the exchange and don't even comment on that.
She also gave nonsense comments such as, in her claim that the left will be smeared regardless by centrists (a point we happen to agree with her on), "Bernie won Nevada and it was, 'Oh my god we're going to decapitate people in Central Park!'" Huh? Is that your attempt at hyperbole because what it really sounds like is you have no concrete example so you're just going to lie -- and, no, that's not how you win a debate.
"Choosing your political philosophy based upon
what's going to get you a pat on the head by MSNBC," she said -- while
her body was turned away from them and while she refused to look them in
the eye -- was an intended insult to former MSNBC host Krystal Ball.
And to be sure that no one missed it, she then passively-aggressively
added, "I don't mean to mischaracterize you." And she said that to
Krystal with her head still turned away from Krystal.
Krystal Ball: I don't see how Cornel West getting 5% and helping to re-elect Trump ends up with things going in a better direction
Briahna Joy Gray (waving her hands and her voice rising): Why do you keep saying it like that, Krystal? He-he-he gets 5% and the Green Party, a third party effort gets stronger and more well funded and more able to compete in future elections.
Kyle Kulinski: Until we have ranked choice voting, there is not even 1% viability for them.
Briahna Joy Gray: Who do you think --
Kyle Kulinski: Can you admit that, can you acknowledge that that until we get rank choice voting --
Briahna Joy Gray: Who do you think -- Who do you think --
Kyle Kulinski: -- no third party has any chance in hell? Do you acknowledge that? Right?
Briahna Joy Gray: Who do you think --
Kyle Kulinski: -- are you going to answer that?
Briahna Joy Gray: -- has been doing most of the rank choice? voting
Kyle Kulinski: She won't answer it. A simple question.
Briahna Joy Gray (angry): I'm going to answer it on my own time and in my own words, Kyle. Respectfully.
Kyle Kulinski: It's a simple one.
Briahna Joy Gray (turning her body even further away from the two people across from her): I've got to say I go around doing a lot of podcasts and I don't know what's going on right now. It might be the phase of the moon. We had a double moon last month. But I am getting a little frustrated with feeling shouted down and disrespected in every single space that I go into. I gotta say, I promise that I'm going to answer your question, Kyle. [Claps her hands.] Sit tight, I've got it coming for you.
Kyle Kulinski: I'll sit tight.
Briahna Joy Gray: I . . . Who do you think has been doing the bulk and the best funded ranked choice voting advocacy in terms of getting on ballots and getting it passed in the United States of America?
Kyle Kulinski: Third party voters.
Briahna Joy Gray: The Libertarian Party. Because, unlike the Green Party -- I'm no like fan of the Libertarian Party. For obvious reasons, they're better funded than the Green Party and they, as a consequence, have been better able to make much more greater gains in actually getting rank choice voting passed around the country. What I'm saying is that there's a tangible, material benefit to getting more money for a Green Party -- whatever third party happens to be but right now all we have is the Green Party for obvious reasons -- getting them more money to do the work across the country to advance third parties -- rank choice voting, rather -- is being exactly the goal that you're articulating. So, yes, I do see a direct connection between your goal -- your stated goal -- of getting ranked choice voting and voting for the Green Party. You know who's not going to vote for rank-choice voting? The Democratic Party.
She was very pleased with herself as she concluded her wordage.
Maybe the boys of THE VANGUARD were distracted by all her angry hand shaking and gestures at Kyle as she stumbled through her words but, for the record, the question she was supposed to be answering, the one that she said she would answer? It was, "Until we have ranked choice voting, there is not even 1% viability for them. Can you admit that, can you acknowledge that that t until we get rank choice voting no third party has any chance in hell?"
That's a yes or it's a no.
And THE VANGUARD boys turned on their one-time hero Kyle to prop up the lying con artist that is Bri-Bri Joy Gray. They gave her a pass last week while pretending that Sabby Sabs was alone in lying about the angry ambush RBN did on Marianne Williamson -- again, she was on Bri's BAD FAITH, Bri determined the clips of the ambush that would be played and the ones that wouldn't. She then conned along with Sabby while Sabby 100% lied about what happened. And while THE VANGUARD wanted to call out Sabby, they refused to hold Bri accountable. It's hypocrisy.
And then there's the stupidity.
But let us comment, as two who live in California, that THE VANGUARD boys accuse Jimmy Dore (rightly) of always giving Republicans credit while slamming Democrats. Bri-Bri did a similar thing. No, the Libertarian Party is not why California cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Albany, Eureka, Palm Desert, Ojai and San Leandro have rank choice voting. We're pretty sure that would be true of other states. Bri does get that her b.s. is about money and not people power, right? Because it's the people who make rank choice voting a reality, not the funding of the Libertarian Party.
If you're not noticing, Bri's dancing over to the right-wing herself.
That was not a winning debate performance no matter how much THE VANGUARD and others want to lie and, yes, whore about it.
It was an embarrassment. Bri was hostile, she was unable to formulate coherent sentences and she looked like a sore cry baby. If everyone is being so hostile to you, Bri, whatever podcast you go to, maybe ponder whether or not you're the problem.
On THE VANGUARD, Zac was echoing Bri's 5% nonsense.
No one wanted to explain it. Probably because explaining it would present even more problems.
If, in the 2024 election or any presidential election before or after, the Green Party got 5% of the national vote, they would qualify for federal funding. That used to really mean something. We'll come back to the reality on that. Not only would they get around $10 million in federal funding but they'd have ballot access in many states. (Some states have a lower threshold than 5% -- such as 1%.)
First off, the ten million? It wouldn't make them competitive.
Look to Barack Obama. He's the one who killed that. We called it out in real time. Where were you, YOUTUBERS?
In 2004, the Democratic Party decided that they could walk away from federal funding in the general election and this would allow them to rake in corporate millions and be further owned by the corporations. John Kerry's campaign tried to float that but Kerry himself was against it and most voters were as well. This was one of the few advances, federal funding for the general election, that resulted from the Watergate scandal.
Then the Christ-child emerged and every rule and fact went out the window. Long before THE NEW YORK TIMES 'discovered' in the fall of 2008 that the claim that 'small donors' were fueling Barack's campaign were lies, we'd told you that they were lies. And we told you because we knew what was coming. Lying to voters that these small donors were making Barack competitive was about softening you up for the general election. That's when he became the first Democratic candidate to break from the federal funding created post-Watergate. And we called it out, where the hell were you?
So the point is, it'll give them $10 million but, in terms of money, that's pointless. It would be one thing if everyone was still using the federal funds. But the Democrats walked out on that in 2008 and are not going back to it.
So you're $10 million that you think is so big? The corporations are giving that to both major parties every day in the lead up to a general election.
Now let's deal with another reality.
5%.
In 2000, the Green Party had its best showing. It got 2.7% of the national vote (Ralph Nader was the candidate). In 2004, with David Cobb as the nominee and a safe state 'strategy,' that dropped to 0.10%. Repeating: 0.10%. In 2008, that increased to 0.12% (Cynthia McKinney was the nominee). In 2012, Jill Stein managed to scrap together 0.36% of the vote. In 2016, Jill got 1.07% of the vote. In 2020, Howie Hawkins got 0.26% of the vote. That's the Green Party.
Only Ralph got above 2%. And Ralph did so by barnstorming the country (he visited all 50 states in his run for president -- something no other Green nominee has ever done since) and via high profile endorsements which included Ben Cohen, Phil Donahue, Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Peter Coyote, Studs Terkel, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore, Paul Newman, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, Company Flow, Willie Nelson, Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, Tim Robbins, Cornel West, Jim Hightower, Noam Chomsky, Ani DiFranco, Randall Robinson, Medea Benjamin, Manning Marable . . .
And he was also a nationally known figure, a very popular and well known figure. In 1996, Kevin J. Kelly (SEVEN DAYS) wrote, "Vermont's Ralph
Nader and Bernie Sanders, probably the most famous figures on the
American left, are in many ways a matched pair. Ascetic and tenacious
activists, their shared critique of U.S. capitalism is inspiring a new
generation of citizen-visionaries." Now Ralph's been ripped apart since
2000. But when he ran in 2000, he was huge. A consumer activists for
decades. A national figure, someone who could be -- and regularly was -- a guest on NBC's THE TONIGHT SHOW when that program was viewed by millions.
And he got 2.7% of the national vote. Not 5%. And no one since him -- that's five presidential elections -- in the Green Party got anywhere that number. (In fact, in 2004, when Ralph didn't run as a Green, Ralph still got more votes than the actual Green Party nominee that year.)
Instead of getting that reality, VANGUARD streamers basically got Zac declaring, "Nothing can hurt us now. What we have can't be destroyed. That's our victory -- our victory over the dark. It is a victory because we're not afraid." Bette Davis in her most noble role.
2000 was a different time. Bully Boy Bush was a national joke and an idiot. Most didn't think the election would be close and assumed Al Gore would easily win. This allowed a lot of people to feel comfortable endorsing a third party candidate, campaigning for one and voting for one. 2024? Donald Trump as the nominee for the GOP? That's more like 2004 when every non-Democratic presidential run (except for Bully Boy Bush) saw a drop off. (Despite Bri-Bri's lie quoted earlier -- "whatever third party happens to be but right now all we have is the Green Party for obvious reasons" -- the Green Party is not the only third party on the left that runs presidential candidates.)
We didn't vote for Ralph in 2000 -- one of us was too young to vote, the other voted for Al Gore -- but we've had to endure some Nader voters ever since.
Your vote is your vote, you use it how you want -- and that does including making the decision not to vote. That is your vote and it is your right as an American citizen to use it the way you want.
We're not hear to tell you who to vote for or how to vote.
We're not here to shame you.
We took part in a community effort last week (see "The Green presidential candidate needs to commit to building the party") arguing that voting for the Green Party in the 2024 presidential election to build the party was a valid reason to vote for it and strongly encouraged Green Party members to base their selection of a presidential nominee on what the potential nominees promised to do after the election. Because they aren't going to win the general election. And the only presidential nominee from that party who has ever spent time post-election working on building the party is Howie Hawkins. Two time nominee Jill Stein, for example, goes all around the world but she doesn't spend post-election time giving back to the Green Party by helping it build. Howie Hawkins has addressed Green Party issues in a YOUTUBE broadcast weekly (sometimes more than weekly) since the week after the election. He didn't walk away. He continues to work to build the party. Whomever they select for 2024 better have a plan of what happens after the election to build the party.
We're not against you voting Green. We're against you voting stupidly however you choose to vote. In fact, misinformed voters -- regardless of how they eventually vote -- scare us more than anything else.
To be an informed voter, you need to know what you're voting for, what you're voting against, what the potential impacts are. We are on the record saying that you can only vote on election day by what you know. If the day after, the press reveals something they should have reported before the election, that's on them, not you. You're not a psychic and no one should attack you for not having the gift of prophecy.
If Krystal returns to voter shaming or ordering people around? We'll be the first to call her out. The first. As we did when she confused supporting Marianne Williamson with ordering the rest of us to get on board. But that's not the conversation that she and Kyle were trying to have with Bri.
"We didn't vote for Ralph in 2000 -- one of us was too young to vote, the other voted for Al Gore -- but we've had to endure some Nader voters ever since. "
That's what we said a few paragraphs back. What are we talking about?
We both have had to endure Nader voters who have been guilted into shame. You voted for him in 2000. You believed in him. That's fine. We don't have a problem with that. But because we feel that way, we get more than our share of Nader voters who feel they can talk to us and we won't shame them (we won't) so they can whine. We're not big fans of whining.
And our point there is? The day after 2024's election is not the day to ask, "What happens if I vote third party?" Vote third party if you want. It's your vote. But however you vote, you better damn well be aware of what could happen. If you vote Green, one thing that might happen is some crazy destroy the world fool of the Republican Party gets into the White House.
If that happens,
we're not going to blame you for all the troubles and travails that
follow. But we also don't want to endure your whines. If you vote,
know what the consequences could be. And live with them without
whining. To be clear, not every Nader supporter is a whiner. Most
grasp the reality that Al Gore lost the recounts for a number of reasons
and that the election wouldn't have been close if he had managed to
secure his own home state. There are plenty of reasons that he never
became president (including crooked Supreme Court justices). We are not
blaming you and we never have. But we don't want to hear the whining
that some Nader supporters feel the need to offer.
Randi Rhodes, in 2004, on AIR AMERICA RADIO, waylaid Patti Smith in the hall while Patti was leaving the taped interview she'd just done for a friend (Steve Earle). Oh-Patti-I'm-one-of-your-biggest-fans-and-you-know-how-hard-it-is-for-women-in-radio-could-you-please-come-on-my-show-for-just-a-few-minutes-before-you-leave-the-studio? Patti then made one of the biggest mistakes she'd ever made in her life: She went on air with Randi Rhodes.
After a few laments on Randi's part that the Iraq War hadn't produced, in her opinion, any great music -- she seemed to feel the deaths and horror of the Vietnam War had been mitigated by numerous sixties tunes she kept reeling off -- Randi moved in for the kill and savaged Patti. Just like she savaged Ralph Nader during a call in when she told him that we couldn't afford him -- we couldn't afford his running for president in 2004.
We don't say that. Well, maybe we do when it comes to YOUTUBERS. We can't afford YOUTUBERS lying. If someone wants to vote Green, fine. If they want to vote however fine. But we need to know what our vote means. We're not voting Green because there is a plan by the Republican Party to strip people of their rights. That's dreamers -- and that's even the children of immigrants -- children born in this country -- that the Republican Party thinks they can strip of citizenship. 'B-b-b-but the Constitution!' Doesn't matter. Nothing does with an illegal and corrupt Supreme Court. We saw it with ROE. We saw it when it rewarded the hate merchant Lorie Smith out of Colorado. 'It would deny her religion if she had to design a website for a same-sex marriage but this Court opinion is not to be expanded upon, honest, pinky promise.' It's already being used to deny the rights of gays and lesbians. And the GOP extremist goal is to overturn marriage equality. Why? Because they believe it is the first time the government has recognized legal rights for gays and lesbians. They think if they overturn this, they can overturn anything. They have also defined same-sex relationships -- living together, marriage, dating, what have you -- as pornography. They don't do that for straight relationships. But they do it for same-sex relationships and their plan is to further attack LGBTQ+ rights by doing that and arguing that free speech does not apply to pornography. They want to now move on to outlawing birth control. They think they have the perfect Court to do this with. They think they can achieve all their dreams and rebuke every advance this country has made in the last 70 or so years on race, gender and equality.
That's why we're not voting Green. If you are, we ask that you make demands of your party's eventual nominee. Building a political party is reason enough to vote for the Green Party. And we're not going to hiss at your or fault you for it.
But we can't afford some of these YOUTUBERs.
For example?
Jimmy Dore knows exactly what the f**k he's doing, Gavin, guys, that's what's so wrong about it that's what so f**king nefarious. He's playing his audience like a fiddle and he's playing them to support a guy like Donald Trump when he could be playing them to support a guy like Cornel West. And that tells you everything you need to know about who he is as a person.
That's Zac on THE VANGUARD speaking and Gavin nods along with him. And they don't seem to grasp what they're saying, what they're putting out online.
The problem, for them, isn't that Jimmy's lying. It's that he's lying for Donald Trump. And it's not that he's playing his audience, it's that "he's playing them to support a guy like Donald Trump when he could be playing them to support a guy like Cornel West."
We've done a lot of things here over the years, but we've never tried to play you. And we never would. Because that's manipulation and it's wrong. That Zac can't see that reality indicates to us that when we call him "stupid," we may be giving him credit for more goodness than he actually possesses.
When Bette Davis exposes how she's lied and schemed in THE LETTER, it's great drama. When Zac exposes he's willing to lie and scheme and abuse the trust his audience placed in him? It's just embarrassing and should be career ending.