“Chris Trotter is right wing”?

I think you’re being a bit mischievous, “Castro”. Maybe you’re a right wing troll engaging in a bit of pseudo-political soundness?

Portentous music does not a coherent critique make. I’ve always quite liked Abbey: she is a bit of a humourless John Oliver, but she’s on a bit of a weak one here.

Nine times out of ten I agree wholeheartedly with Chris Trotter. This is one instance when I don’t. (I also believe his bizarre compulsion to write political limericks is slightly disturbing, but that’s neither here nor there.)

If you vote for a candidate, you share responsibility for that candidate coming to power. You, through your participation in the electoral process, contribute to their ascendance. (Are you responsible for what they do while in office? Not really, but I’m convinced there are those who voted for John Key who now believe it was a Faustian pact and are probably feeling just a little guilty.) Given what I know about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both, I could not, in good conscience, vote for either one of them. Moreover, claiming that Donald Trump is the Anti-Christ, while simultaneously playing down Hillary’s track record of political expediency and continued preference for the most incendiary course of action available, is disingenuous at best.

I don’t believe it’s as complicated as people like to make out. To my mind, it’s relatively simple. They’re both wholly awful people. One’s a narcissistic blow-hard with the temperament of a petulant child, and the other’s a manipulative, self-serving corporate shill whose recipe for global harmony appears to consist of war, war and yet more war. You can immerse your genitals in a cauldron of boiling oil, or you can chew on a bucket full of broken glass and used syringes. Or… you can opt for something altogether different.

And for anyone who hasn’t yet seen it, here’s Abby Martin tearing strips off Hillary Clinton.

https://youtu.be/PV_PLCC6jeI

Accepting the “lesser evil” has got us to the stage where we only have a choice of evils!

It is never more of the same, It usually gets better or worse.

More of the same will be worse as the hegemony and war expand.

If you are satisfied then say so.

Opposition allows change and often motivates change.

Well said, Nick.

If the method for selecting Clinton was flawed,. then that should be addressed. But undermining her chances and allowing Trump to slip through to the White House would be the worst possible outcome.

The man is mad.

His point was not that Hillary Clinton is as true as the North Star, like you lot, but, after decades of watching progressives take unerring aim at their own feet, that sometimes the goals are worthy of informed compromise.

The art of the possible.

Need I remind you of the ill-fated, apocryphal William Jay.

(Here lies the body of William Jay
Who died maintaining his right of way –
He was right, dead right, as he sped along,
But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.”

“You know”, as my old Granddad didn’t use to say, “that’s not only true about cars and some idiot, but it is also true about life and how it is lived”.

Actually, I may have stolen that one from Melania.

His point was that, good as it feels at the raging moment, angry, self-righteous rants and a few dollars (not sure how many these days) will get you a cup of good coffee in Wellington and slop in Auckland.

(That was, perhaps also Chris’ point).

Accusations that Chris is some sort of Right-wing waste of space is utter nonsense and entirely self defeating, (as Trotsky scrawled out in his own blood on the living-room floor). You may not like the message, used as you are to the black and white company of the equally enraged and Trolls, but when did you last do anything constructive? When did you last wonder if there are any flaws in your own air -tight reasoning.

The truth is inevitably complex and the answers, should there be any, are likely to be so nuanced that you might need to use the back of the T-shirt too.

Hillary is a good example. As you all know very well, the polemic reasoning of Kieran Kelly is only part of the story. Decisions, good or bad, are made by powerful actors without the benefit of hindsight. Some decisions are self-serving, may are based on mistaken assumptions, some are altruistic (sort of) but they all have in common that the deciders have nothing but best-guesses of outcomes to guide them.

Armed, therefore, with a partial array of facts and guided by a blurred vision of eventual outcomes, my guess is that Clinton will be way better for the world that Trump. Not perfect, probably, maybe not even very good, but sufficiently better to consider the Baying Bernie or Busters to be little short of traitors to progressive politics.

Rubbish Castro. He’s only “right wing” in your eyes because he dared disagree with your own myopic worldview. Ok, your a Trumpista, we get that. How about you come out openly and declare your support for a playboy billionaire who treats women like flesh and denigrates ethnic and religious groups?

Fact is, that while Kelly has raised valid issues, that this has become an echo-chamber of anti-Clintonites. The real politik here is that under America’s two-horse race, it’s a clear choice. Not a good choice, but that’s it.

It’s up to our American comrades to sort their shit out and democratise their electoral system. Until then, good men like Bernie Sanders are sidelined and we get people like Trump and Clinton.

In this race, Trump is definitely the greater of two evils. As others have pointed out, a racist, misogynist bigot who is also possibly a rapist (according to Kelly), has no place with his hands on the nuclear launch codes and is no friend of the working class.

If Trump is the answer, god help us all.

Useful stats Swordfish. 🙂

Would seem to show that the public had already decided who they trusted more, even before the MSM decided to admit Sanders’ campaign existed.

I understand that Sanders recently left the Democratic party, having done what he promised to do by endorsing Clinton when she ‘won’ the primary. Presumably he is now free to do something he would have been able to plan for ever since he realised the primary result was predetermined.

Kieran has indicated that part 2 will include explaining why ‘chains of rhetorical steel’ (perhaps of the Todd McClay kind) are more like rhetorical butter which can be broken at any time. Knowing that being reminded what it said it would do tends not to stop our government from doing whatever it wants and to hell with promises, it’s likely that the same would apply to a Clinton government and that Sanders knows it.

He has 2-3 months in which to ‘make his move’ and if we like we can have fun speculating what it might be. The longer he waits (up to a point) the more damage the top two can do to each other – after all, they both have so much material available.