Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

Wwwwwwwwaaaaaaiiiitttttt fffffooorrrrrr iiiiiittttttttt

(that last post was to DJP)

She does not care enough to piss off her funders in the "energy" fields, and i see her keeping the Arctic open for drilling a la the Obama-Trudeau agreement.

From her platform:

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/climate/

Ensure safe and responsible energy production. As we transition to a clean energy economy, we must ensure that the fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible and that areas too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table. Hillary knows there are some places where we should keep fossil fuels in the ground or under the ocean.

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/633629814713397249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

So again, are you basing this on research that shows her campaign goals will not go far enough to make a difference or are you making up shit because you don't like her?

The former implies that she does not care and is not including it in her platform

I think this really hits on something. IMO she doesn't have to "not care" about global warming to do nothing about it. I will never in a zillion years vote for HRC (I'm in MA) but not because I don't think she doesn't care or that her heart is in the wrong place. I think she is generally sincere, well-intentioned, and on some issues even righteous. But as someone who has been reared in and profited by a system of legislation-for-profit, I think she is fundamentally incapable of identifying the actual underlying problem. Name your issue: guns? bridges? health care? prison reform? The ob$tacle is the same.

So, the people I had Easter dinner with vote Republican because of abortion. My brother married the daughter of a Marine and her family are really conservative. Talking about the "unborn" while passing plates of slaughtered pig = fuck these people. How could they not see how their racist party is responsible for Trump?

Electing Trump this year is not going to give the WH to the far left four years from now. If you believe it might - like you're thinking Trump might be good from a strategic perspective because maybe it'll help the left succeed more later down the line, I think you need to strongly interrogate whether that's a reasonable assumption.

Fetuses, the other white meat

xpost yeah I'm not voting for Trump so

or maybe you are asking Susan Sarandon that

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/03/29/susan_sarandon_is_perfect_spokeswoman_for_neverhillary.html

What Sarandon is voicing is the old Leninist idea of “heightening the contradictions,” which holds that social conditions need to get worse in order to inspire the revolution that will make them better. In this way of thinking, the real enemy of progress is incremental reform that would render the status quo tolerable. That was the position of the German Communists in the early 1930s, who refused to ally with the Social Democrats, proclaiming: “After Hitler, our turn!” A similar—if less deadly—assumption underlay Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, for which Sarandon served as co-chair of the national steering committee. George W. Bush, Nader argued then, could serve as a “provocateur,” awakening the power of the left. “If it were a choice between a provocateur and an 'anesthetizer,' I'd rather have a provocateur,” said Nader. “It would mobilize us.”

Electing Trump this year is not going to give the WH to the far left four years from now. If you believe it might - like you're thinking Trump might be good from a strategic perspective because maybe it'll help the left succeed more later down the line, I think you need to strongly interrogate whether that's a reasonable assumption.

― Mordy, Tuesday, March 29, 2016 1:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea the "things need to get really bad before they get better" fantasy has been around for a long time

But as someone who has been reared in and profited by a system of legislation-for-profit, I think she is fundamentally incapable of identifying the actual underlying problem. Name your issue: guns? bridges? health care? prison reform? The ob$tacle is the same.

Do you believe this is reflected in the platform she has put forward? The link to her take on climate change is upthread.

i love susan sarandon but she is wrong here

xpost But that's the thing—I don't believe her professed positions have any real value. This isn't cynicism on my part. The post-election prioritization of corporate interest above principles-on-record basically IS neoliberalism.

HVIII you are in a room full of people that think the bailout was a good idea

worst case scenario for her is a big fat tax cut so she's cool with trump

As we transition to a clean energy economy, we must ensure that the fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible and that areas too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table. Hillary knows there are some places where we should keep fossil fuels in the ground or under the ocean.

tbf this on its own does not sound like it is going to reverse climate change

sarandon may think trump would be better than hillary because it would force people to have a revolution; but in reality, her personal life will be impacted exactly ZERO by trump in the white house, she is wealthy and white.

like, i'd like to see more language about energy sources other than fossil fuels

her campaign goals will not go far enough to make a difference or are you making up shit because you don't like her?

ok i'll cut to the chase: she's a congenital liar and politically inept very often.

(lol i didn't actually click the link obv)

ha I was gonna ask

I am not an accelerationist but the fact that Susan Sarandon is makes me like her more. The left can afford a few high profile eccentrics to put pressure on the democrats from the left this year, as Hillary losing the election to Trump seems basically impossible.

xposts guys I don't think anyone is arguing that the "strategy" Sarandon mentioned is anything but stupid. I was responding to this characterization by HRC team of those who believe there is a critical difference btw HRC and Sanders as "young" or "immature."

I don't really believe she means it anyway, nor do I believe most people who say this. It always sounds more like concern trolling in the hopes of swaying votes, and fair enough.

S. Sarandon can heighten my contradictions any time she wants, hubba hubba

if trump's campaign manager was running anyone but trump's campaign this assault charge would be a massive scandal, no?

Of course. Trump hires literal thugs and everyone knows it. Cf. his lawyer:

I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

People thought the Republican Party was toast after Nixon fucked up. I remember my Democrat relatives being excited in 1976 - "people will never vote Republican again!" We can see how well that worked, with the Worst Republican Ever in the wings.

yeah the bush-as-worst-president-ever backlash lasted all of two fucking years when the worst congress in history was elected in 2010

This is a completely different situation.

http://gui.afsc.org/birddog/bernie-sanders-lockheed-martin-f-35-jets-vermont

Josh: "...You work on limiting the influence of money in politics, yet at the same time you continue to support wasteful contracts from companies such as Lockheed Martin with the F-35 for instance. So what steps are you willing to take to limit the influence of companies in politics, not only on campaigns, but in policy making as well?”

Senator Sanders: "What part of the F-35? What are my options as a Senator? …if I said no to the F-35 coming to Burlington, for Vermont National Guard where would it go?... South Carolina?

My choice as a Senator, this is not a debate 20 years ago when we saw the F-35, which was very, very costly and is a huge cost overall. It’s the debate that the F-35 is here, it goes to South Carolina, or Florida, or in the state of Vermont. And I wanted it to come to the state of Vermont. Now in terms of the military spending in general, that’s another broader issue. Are we spending too much? Yes, we are. Have there been, more…well back up for a minute…we are spending too much, we should cut it.

The F-35, you have to in politics, it’s not and people do this I don’t mean to be critical, but you gotta look at where somebody is at the moment. If the debate is if somebody comes to you and says “Look, I’m thinking about building this super plane deal, it’s gonna cost huge sums of money, what do you think?” That’s, and maybe say no, no I think that’s a good idea, maybe we’ll go with the F-16. So then I responded. Are you about to say something?”

Josh: "No."

Sen. Sanders continues: “That’s where, in the real world, if the plan is built, and it is the plan that the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force and of NATO, and if the choice is if that goes to Vermont, North Carolina-not North Carolina, South Carolina, or Florida, what is your choice as a United States Senator? Do you want it to go to South Carolina? You’re not saving anybody any money. So you have to look at these things in a, and it becomes complicated, and good friends can disagree on that. But my view is that given the reality of the damn plane, I’d rather it come to Vermont than to South Carolina. And that’s what the Vermont National Guard wants, and that means hundreds of jobs in my city. That’s it.”

The party base is divided here. It's not just that democrats and independents hate republicans to an exceptional degree.

i don't blame him tbh but if you don't know anything about the F-35 this is a very amusing breakdown:
https://pando.com/2014/12/18/the-war-nerd-more-proof-the-us-defense-industry-has-nothing-to-do-with-defending-america/

tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

umm I think maybe we have a general election thread title here

Sanders does right by his constituents I don't see that as a problem.

I don't either but I think it might not fit the image some of his supporters might have of him.

Maybe, although his decision there wasn't about doing what was best for Lockheed Martin, it was about what was best for the people of Vermont.

tread very fucking lightly, because you tread on my fucking dreams

The claim regarding Clinton is that money influences her in ways that lead her to value the interests of capital over labor

Sanders is a goddamn '70s liberal pro-pork egomaniacal Democrat, and light-years better than his opponent.

I find it interesting that the Democratic campaigns want to generate every possible fake-controversy about each other that they can possibly imagine except for "which one is likely to lose their faculties first and would it be while they were in office a la Reagan"

Lol that is like my favorite quote from the campaign. What type of lawyer talks like that on the record to the fucking media.

it fits the image i have of him bc he's not bsing his way out of it and pretend to be something he isn't.

it doesn't fit the image his naysayers have of him tho, which is of an out of touch idealist who shuns pragmatism.

xp over yonder to k3v

What type of lawyer talks like that on the record to the fucking media.

a mob lawyer.

i don't turn to susan sarandon for political advice; only posted it because a feminist telling her to 'act her age' was kinda gross

marcotte is a clown

KeV <3√√√

/long post alert, sorry

As we transition to a clean energy economy, we must ensure that the fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible and that areas too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table. Hillary knows there are some places where we should keep fossil fuels in the ground or under the ocean.

tbf this on its own does not sound like it is going to reverse climate change

correct - it's written in a way so that people on all sides of the issue can hear what they want to hear. when i read that excerpt, i don't think about climate change specifically, but instead about the short-term dangers that can arise from off-shore drilling (ie., another Deepwater Horizon) and fracking. if you're a gung ho hillary fan that cares about climate change, you read that section as advocacy for reducing GHG emissions as quickly as possible ("transition to a clean energy economy"! "Keep fossil fuels in the ground"!). if you're on the coast, you read it as moving toward denying off-shore drilling permits (unlike obama). if you live above the marcellus formation, you read it as opposing fracking. if you're a republican fan of oil and gas and/or a climate change denier, you read it as a continuation of obama's "all of the above" approach, which is in itself a continuation of bush's "all of the above" approach (only areas that are "too sensitive" for energy production will be taken off the table); "there are some places where we should keep fossil fuels in the ground or under the ocean." that excerpt is everything to everyone, which is why to a lot of environmentalists it's meaningless, and an indication that she's just going to be Obama II on the environment.

yes, i've read the rest of her climate plan. there are things in there that sound good:

Set national goals to have 500 million solar panels installed; generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America; cut energy waste in homes, schools, and hospitals by a third; and reduce American oil consumption by a third.

Lead the world in the fight against climate change by bringing greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below what they were in 2005 within the next decade—and keep going.

but there's no way the solar panels thing will happen without republican support in the house, and that's not happening (unless trump brings everyone down with him). and i know it annoys everyone to hear, but the 30% below 2005 goal is likely not enough to mitigate millions and millions of people dying from climate change. those goals are set under heavy political pressure and are consensus driven - they represent the most conservative estimates from climate scientists. and hillary's record on environmental issues is mixed. it's not just her waddling on keystone (a textbook example of her refusing to take a position on principle, and instead holding a finger to the political winds). she sort of gets it, she sort of doesn't at all. again, she's obama II.

and that's why a lot of people who care about the environment, and climate change in particular, express deep skepticism that hillary clinton's positions add up to what it would take to produce a response that's commensurate to the scale of the problem. climate change isn't the kind of problem that can be solved in hedged, incremental steps.

anyway, my point is that the excerpt above is egregiously vague and could never be used as evidence of clinton's belief in the urgency of addressing climate change, one way or another, and that plenty of people who care passionately about climate change are not optimistic about her candidacy because it likely represents a continuation of incremental improvements (in the face of stonewalling by republicans, i know, i get that) which will not add up to the changes that are necessary. that's not a fringe position. that is a very common position among people who care about this.

thx KM

even when Clinton puts in an anti-fossil fuel applause line -- her recent vow "We're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" -- it's something not at all necessary for broadening her appeal, indeed will harden votes against her. Yeah, those damn unemployed miners....

i assumed this Marcotte is just some nitwit blogger xxxp

Sarandon went from appearing at Nader rallies with Tim Robbins in 2000 to calling him "your guy" on Bill Maher's show in 2004