I understand that there are some readers here, some who loved Bernie, who may go vote for Stein, or may not vote on the dem side of the ticket.
I know you don’t trust her, don’t trust that her (fully disclosed, largely donated) speech fees keep her free of Wall Street and other corporate influence, of domestic oligarchs.
Here is the thing. Donald Trump is flirting with support for the biggest fucking oligarch in the world, and oligarch who in the most UN-transparent, brutal, kleptocratic way has amassed what some believe is the world’s largest fortune.
This man:
Putin’s net worth, obtained by ripping off his country, by strongarming other Russian oligarchs, is estimated as high as $200 Billion dollars. That dwarfs the Kochs, dwarfs Bloomberg, dwarfs Bill Gates, and for sure dwarfs Trump.
Trump would be happy to set the US up for plunder along the lines of Putin. Sure, it will be harder here, but the process has already gotten a big boost by the last thirty years of wealth concentration. Masha Gessen, who claims to be a Putin opponent in exile, poopoohs the Trump-Putin linkage and the ease of Trump doing anything like Putin here in the US thanks to our 200+ years of constitutional checks and balances. That might be right.
But it is pretty clear that Trump cares only about Trump, and he is willing to treat our national treasure as an ATM to his ambitions, and let Putin rack up whatever victories and cash he wants.
Look this election over — it is not GOP vs Democrat, it is pathological vs sane if flawed, it is abnormal vs normal, it is kleptocrat vs public servant.
Is Trump willing to name call and try to bully notable Americans? Sure. Elizabeth Warren is “Pocahontas”. Hillary is “crooked”. It’s “little” Marco Rubio. Michael Bloomberg is a “little” guy he would like to hit so hard it makes his head spin. He is happy to tell a national reporter (woman of course) to be quiet in a press conference.
But when it comes to Putin? Not so much. To this day, he still calls Putin a better leader than President Obama. He is happy to suck up to the monied breast of Vladimir Putin, happy to put aside NATO alliances, happy to call for cyberespionage, to kiss the ring of the richest fucking thief in the world.
So, as Joshua Holland exhorts, make your choice wisely on Nov. 8. If you cannot stand Hillary, I would still ask you to hold your nose and vote for her. If you cannot vote for her and like Jill Stein, then do so in an extremely red or blue state, and if you are in a battleground, swap your vote with someone who is in a very red or green state. Similarly if you are not voting.
This is about ceding our country and the world to the worst, most insidious, most vile kleptocratic oligarchs in the world. For all the flaws and problems of Hillary Clinton, none compare to Putin and Trump.
DO NOT DO ANYTHING IN NOVEMBER TO GIVE WAY TO THESE OLIGARCHS!