"Defeating Trump is more important than all of us"

[EgoDeath]

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What's the video meant to reference?

[Rev. Rye]

In this particular forum thread context, the Busters who are so committed to their particular candidate (the same one I’ll be voting for soon, mind you) that they’d stay home just because the lesser of two evils isn’t good enough. In this case, who the Romans are meant to be should be obvious.

In the actual historical context of when Life of Brian was made, the various rebel groups were an analogue for present-day left-wing factions who ended up focusing more on squabbling about how each other were false prophets than actually fighting the power. And, of course, if you know your British history, you know who came to power the same year the film was released...

[EgoDeath]

In this particular forum thread context, the Busters who are so committed to their particular candidate (the same one I’ll be voting for soon, mind you) that they’d stay home just because the lesser of two evils isn’t good enough. In this case, who the Romans are meant to be should be obvious.

In the actual historical context of when Life of Brian was made, the various rebel groups were an analogue for present-day left-wing factions who ended up focusing more on squabbling about how each other were false prophets than actually fighting the power. And, of course, if you know your British history, you know who came to power the same year the film was released...

Nice. Thanks for hashing that out. It's really frustrating for me to watch. Even though I couldn't fucking stand Hillary Clinton, and still can't (she's a bit cunty, let's all just be honest here), I still gave her my vote in 2016. Looks like the same is bound to happen this year, where I'll be forced to vote for Biden, while a good chunk of the Left will be busy trying to out-woke one another, arguing over who the best candidate would've been, or how the present candidate isn't good enough and blah blah blah, and in the mean time will hand the election to Trump on a silver platter.

I'm so sick of everyone on the Left trying to out-woke each other and argue about who's the most progressive and the most intellectual among us... It's like so many Democrats are just concerned with proving that they're right, or that they have the right idea about what being progressive really means, and in the mean time are missing the fucking point that this spray-tanned asshat is going to take office for another four years because so many of us are too busy squabbling. It's really irritating.

[Athene]

I'm not impressed with Biden's or Sander's political games, nor am I moved by liberals bleating how terrible racist, fascist Bogeyman Trump is. 
Truth of the matter is, Black Americans catch hell in this country regardless of which party's in the White House. That is in tremendous part, due of a myriad of past and present systemic/structurally racist policies Uncle Sam lovingly engineered to make it that way--some of which both Biden and Sanders supported.

Neither of those doddering, dismissive fuckers has any serious intention of addressing the crux of such matters, so to hell with of them.
And the Democratic Party, of course.

The days of "choosing" between the Left and Right arms of White Supremacy are over for me. Frankly, I'm a little embarrassed that I played along with it and championed the scam as long as I did.


Ah well...live and learn.

[EgoDeath]

So... what's your point? Other than trying to satisfy your ego? You're just gonna' whine about it and then choose to not vote anyway?

I mean... okay? Cool?

[Athene]

So, what's 8 Mile's problem? Are only people who share in the opinion of OP allowed to participate and whine in this thread?

Lol...If folks must know, I like to state my position to Black voters and encourage them to pass it along when I can; Online and IRL.
I know a lot Black of folks used to lurk here from time to time. I imagine some still do.

I think many, many more Black people need to be telling the Dems NO and setting some clear terms for how these motherfuckers must engage us from here on out if they want to ensure receiving enough of the Black vote in the future. The Dems have probably already blown 2020. I've talked to many who already share my POV; They're committed to washing their hands of Democratic Party and refuse to entertain dealing with them of outside a ruthless basis of quid pro quo.

If my stating that is a problem for someone in this thread somehow, well....can't say I care, tbh.

[Rev. Rye]

I think I can see where Athene is coming from. From what I can understand, one of the biggest threads of American history has been 401 years' worth of white people fucking black people over. For 246 of those years, the bulk were kept in actual, chattel, slavery and even for those few who ended up free, the Sword of Damocles that they could be put back into it was always a distinct possibility. For the other 155, it seems like many were (and still kinda are) kept in states that weren't much better, for the most part, whether it's Jim Crow or our incredibly fucked-up way of fighting crime which leads to us having the highest rate of incarceration on the planet (and, due to a combination of socioeconomic factors [many black people are STILL trapped in the cycle of poverty, which really creates a high risk factor for a life of crime] and persistent racism [racial profiling and rampant police brutality], those prisoners are very disproportionately black.) It's possible to argue that one of the biggest legacies of the Civil Rights era, is that white people went from being blatant in their racism to being more hypocritical about it. And in addition to increasingly blatant racism from the Republicans, a lot of those policies that have made life Hell for black people were passed with Democratic support. Just to name one example, The Crime Bill of 1994 that helped ensure that we'd have about 1% of the population behind bars? Bernie voted for it and Biden wrote the damn thing. And that's really not much of an outlier of an example. And I'm fairly certain I'm just scratching the surface in my attempt at trying to boil over four centuries of institutional racism down to a single paragraph.

If I'm interpreting her post accurately, it's a race-specific version of this Bill Hicks routine:




Feel free to disagree with her about whether or not her radical approach is likely to work in the long (let alone short) run, especially as the right becomes more powerful and goes further to the right (to the extent that even key Civil Rights legislation is now up for grabs). At least I can see where it's coming from.

[Mister Agenda]

I used to be persuaded by argument 'voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil'. I haven't voted for a Democrat or Republican for president since Bob Dole. But you know what? There is never a choice that isn't a lesser evil. No candidate is perfect.

The real choice is whether you do the most effective thing you can do to prevent the greater evils from gaining power. So I'm gonna vote for whichever lesser evil has the best chance to beat the greater evil; because anything else doesn't make a difference or helps the greater evil to prevail.

I'm privileged, it won't hurt me much personally if Trump gets four more years, except for the stress of watching my home country continue to progress in the direction of a de facto fascist dictatorship. I'm not going to be deported, or a victim of top-down stochastically generated violence against nonwhites or non-Christians (hey, I'll lie about being an atheist if the alternative is violence). I'm in a state that will go for Trump no matter what I do and in 2016 I used that as a justification to vote 3rd party. I now realize that the best thing I could have done with my vote was show solidarity with the person who had the only chance to beat Trump because she was the Democratic nominee. Even though she still would have lost, I'd know I cast my vote against the authoritarian wannabe fascist instead of spending it on someone who could never beat Trump in a million years.

[Silver]

I'm privileged, it won't hurt me much personally if Trump gets four more years.

We as a people need to stop this kind of thinking. It's dangerous. Every individual needs to stop thinking he's living in the world alone. Unfortunately, we get lost in our own little worlds where we think only we matter and those directly close to us. We already know religion is not a solution, because it divides. Most people become to comfortable with their lives, they forget that others are suffering, because they are not as in touch with their humanity as they claim. Atheists are no better than theists in this regard where they prefer the comfort of their own lives over a universal understanding. Atheists, after all, are merely connected by the fact that they all share the non-belief in (god)s. I'm not suggesting we begin an atheist coalition, because honestly it shouldn't be about everyone being theist or everyone being atheist. Rather, logically, it should be about everyone being fucking human and owning their fucking humanity under the common sense understanding that we should be treating each other kindly and with respect.

By the way @Mister Agenda I'm not singling you out particularly. It's just that your comment there stirred a fire within me.

[Fake Messiah]