That’s the real issue this time," he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
The argument was familiar, I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame, but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.
—Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
When will we move on?
Lmao they were psychic
But actually, who were the democrats they were talking of back then?
They were talking about the German petty bourgeoisie who they thought would betray the revolutionary proletariat once a bourgeois republic was established. 70 years later the Social Democrats put down the proletarian revolution in Germany to protect the Weimar Republic, inaugurating the reaction in Germany.
70 years later the Social Democrats put down the proletarian revolution in Germany to protect the Weimar Republic, inaugurating the reaction in Germany.
Yeah I’ve just learned the details of the spartacist uprising
I just was not aware that the SPD were around during Marx and that they were referred to as “democrats”Actually, some of the people this address was given to would go on to create the SPD and Marx and Engels would support them. The SPD, though it contained a conservative wing, would remain the party of the German proletariat until it split over supporting the first World War and the Bolsheviks in Russia.
I’m not sure what specific names the German petty bourgeois were organizing under in 1850 but at the end of the Communist Manifesto they discuss a number of trends in German politics that would include the petty bourgeoisie.
I swear I saw a comment on german lemmy about how ebin antifascist SPD was fighting both nazis and tankies 🤮🤮🤮🤮
It’s called immortal science for a reason.
I just thought that was related to Immortal Technique
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Its crazy how often it be like that
Looking at all the music, media, articles, debates, theory, from 10 or 30 or 60 or 100 years ago that’s still perfectly relevant, sometimes so on the nose you don’t even have to change the names or update the lyrics, you could just sing it on tiktok and tell people you wrote it, it makes me feel some kind of war.
I use this quote a lot, not because I’m a big HST fan, but because it’s just so fitting. The fact that even back then the argument was tired… It’s maddening.
lyrics, you could just sing it on tiktok and tell people you wrote it, it makes me feel some kind of war.
“Love me, I’m a liberal” might need a few tweaks, but it’s almost there.
“Buy a gun for your son” is already perfect.
“Napalm sticks to kids” is sadly still much too relevant.I’d love to get recommendations for other articles, etc. that are still relevant!
I’ve considered learning “Love me I’m a Liberal”, but I’m far from living alone and that’s a rough song for someone to walk by at the wrong time. Even in more modernized versions.
I recently re read The Jungle and it is still super relevant. I just read Huasipongo for the first time last week - an oppressed/abused population lashes out against the owner/settler class because they have no other option, and the military is immediately called in to wipe them out. It’s all familiar. And those were both written over 100 years ago
I hear the old political saw, that “we must take the least of two evils.” My friend from Ohio [Mr. Giddings] has already riddled this excuse, so that I might well leave it untouched; but I cannot forbear a brief observation. It is admitted, then, that Cass and Taylor both are evils. For myself, if two evils are presented to me, I will take neither.
Abolitionist Charles Sumner, 1848 speech, on refusing to vote for a slaveowner
They say now’s not the time to talk about this stuff, but one of the big recurring things i’ve had to contend with in terms of personal issues is that there’s never a “better time”. That magical point where there’s nothing else to consider will never arrive, and the longer you wait to rip the band-aid off, the worse it’ll get.
19·2 months agoI must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I find myself quoting/posting this more often than I should have to. It was especially bad after George Floyd was murdered.
There is precisely 3 days where it is the time between now and midterms. These days are decreed by the high priests on the eve before they occur.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/i-wont-vote/
W.E.B. DuBois “Why I Won’t Vote” October 20, 1956
Since I was twenty-one in 1889, I have in theory followed the voting plan strongly advocated by Sidney Lens in The Nation of August 4, i.e., voting for a third party even when its chances were hopeless, if the main parties were unsatisfactory; or, in absence of a third choice, voting for the lesser of two evils
It goes back to 1776 doesn’t it?
