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APAB (All Politicians Are Bastards)
May. 9th, 2022 09:25 pmSomething I thought of on my walk earlier, about the whole naive neo-liberal stance of "vote the bastards out!" which is: "Okay, sure, we vote the bastards out. Great. But to do that we need to vote different bastards in."
Basically, neo-liberals have this idea that replacing one set of bastards for another different set of bastards is going to somehow fix things. But US politicians, like cops, are all bastards. I think the only exception is Bernie Sanders, and even he has some bastard in him regarding Israel. ("What about AOC?" She proved herself a bastard by voting for the status quo concerning Israel.)
Also, it's been my observation over the two decades I was paying attention that almost everyone who actually wants political power is someone who absolutely should never be given any. It's pretty much like wanting to be a cop, in that if your intentions are pure, you're either going to end up losing your job because you tried to do the right thing or you're going to let the system change you into just another cog in the machine. Because the political system in the US is every bit as corrupt and irredeemable as the justice system is. "One bad apple spoils the bunch" is true both of cops and politicians.
"oH bUt the repUbLICaNs aRe iNSanE, We Have To rePLaCe tHEm WITH dEmOCraTs!" The Democrats are enabling Republican insanity. The kindest explanation is that they're too chicken-shit to stand up to the Republicans. But the truest explanation is that they're deliberately not fighting the Republicans because both parties serve the same masters (billionaires) and want the same things. Just as ACAB means that both the good cop and the bad cop are bastards who are on the same side and want the same thing, both major US political parties are on the same side, playing good cop / bad cop. This kind of bullshit is exactly why (at least some of) the founding fathers didn't want political parties to be a thing: because they knew crap like this would happen.
So I guess my point is that if you want to vote the bastards out, don't vote for either GOP or Democrat candidates, because both those parties are corrupt bastards and are on the same side, with one openly insane and the other one either being too cowardly to fight them or else hiding their own insanity. I don't know that any of the third parties are any better, but since both the major parties are ignoring them, what have we got to lose by trying? "OH But a VOtE for A thIRd pArtY Is LIkE THROwing yOur vOtE AWAY!" So what I hear you saying is "We're fucked if we do and fucked if we don't." To which I say "well, if we're fucked either way, let's do our damnedest to make sure the bastards know how much we hate them both!"
Basically, if we're not going to get off our butts and behead all these fuckers and throw out the government entirely because the last 200 years have proven that having leaders is a fucking stupid idea, then we should at least vote third parties just to give two giant middle fingers to both major parties.
The fact that the Democrats have the House, Senate, AND the Presidency but continue to let the Republicans do whatever the fuck they want to do just proves their complicity.
Basically, neo-liberals have this idea that replacing one set of bastards for another different set of bastards is going to somehow fix things. But US politicians, like cops, are all bastards. I think the only exception is Bernie Sanders, and even he has some bastard in him regarding Israel. ("What about AOC?" She proved herself a bastard by voting for the status quo concerning Israel.)
Also, it's been my observation over the two decades I was paying attention that almost everyone who actually wants political power is someone who absolutely should never be given any. It's pretty much like wanting to be a cop, in that if your intentions are pure, you're either going to end up losing your job because you tried to do the right thing or you're going to let the system change you into just another cog in the machine. Because the political system in the US is every bit as corrupt and irredeemable as the justice system is. "One bad apple spoils the bunch" is true both of cops and politicians.
"oH bUt the repUbLICaNs aRe iNSanE, We Have To rePLaCe tHEm WITH dEmOCraTs!" The Democrats are enabling Republican insanity. The kindest explanation is that they're too chicken-shit to stand up to the Republicans. But the truest explanation is that they're deliberately not fighting the Republicans because both parties serve the same masters (billionaires) and want the same things. Just as ACAB means that both the good cop and the bad cop are bastards who are on the same side and want the same thing, both major US political parties are on the same side, playing good cop / bad cop. This kind of bullshit is exactly why (at least some of) the founding fathers didn't want political parties to be a thing: because they knew crap like this would happen.
So I guess my point is that if you want to vote the bastards out, don't vote for either GOP or Democrat candidates, because both those parties are corrupt bastards and are on the same side, with one openly insane and the other one either being too cowardly to fight them or else hiding their own insanity. I don't know that any of the third parties are any better, but since both the major parties are ignoring them, what have we got to lose by trying? "OH But a VOtE for A thIRd pArtY Is LIkE THROwing yOur vOtE AWAY!" So what I hear you saying is "We're fucked if we do and fucked if we don't." To which I say "well, if we're fucked either way, let's do our damnedest to make sure the bastards know how much we hate them both!"
Basically, if we're not going to get off our butts and behead all these fuckers and throw out the government entirely because the last 200 years have proven that having leaders is a fucking stupid idea, then we should at least vote third parties just to give two giant middle fingers to both major parties.
The fact that the Democrats have the House, Senate, AND the Presidency but continue to let the Republicans do whatever the fuck they want to do just proves their complicity.