I voted for the Commie

And I feel more and more like Justin Raimondo

Per what I wrote just over a week ago, offering my latest, detailed, insights about third parties of the left, earlier today I did what I mention in the header and voted for the Commie, specifically for Claudia de la Cruz of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Consider this a protest vote against the protest vote that I would have been casting had I voted for Green Party nominee Jill Stein. As I said at Blogger, and linked within that Substack piece as well, she has some investment hypocrisy problems, one of which — investing in defense stocks — looks even more glaring since Oct. 7, 2023.

Neither this issue itself, nor its ties to other reasons to vote the Commie, are new.

Stein’s investment hypocrisy was, per that link immediately above, detailed by Blue Anon flunky Yashar Ali back in 2016.

That said, Ali appears to be a more muted version a Blue Anon this year, rather than an oppo research flunky. This recent Tweet of his:

In Detroit, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked if she could lose due to the anger felt by Arabs, Muslims, and supporters of the Palestinian cause over civilian deaths in Gaza.

As part of her response, Harris said, “The first, most tragic story is October 7.”

That line, in particular, has further angered supporters of the Palestinian cause.

Shows that Oct. 7, 2023 seems to be why for that, too. He’s still Blue Anoning it, but lower key.

That said? Had Hillary Clinton recognized in 2016 that this thing called “early voting” existed, and thus had Yashar Ali write his big reveal two or three weeks earlier, I would have dropped Stein then. I was thinking about Socialist Party USA candidate Mimi Soltysik, who was on the Texas ballot via write-in, just like de la Cruz is now. (And yes, Blue Anon, including one allegedly pergressuve Texas blogger, Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff? Being a write-in candidate IS being ON the ballot. Period. Just not by name. In fact, at your local voting booth, the write-in candidates will be listed on one wall of the booth.)

Anyway, I kept the SPUSA in the back of my mind after 2016. That was aided by AccommoGreens (the Green equivalent of ConservaDems) becoming more entrenched in 2017. Then, Howie Hawkins got its nomination before getting the Greens’ nod for 2020. IIRC, none of the other minor parties of the left was on the Texas ballot by write-in, in 2020. If they were, I wasn’t ready to go that far yet.

Fast forward to 2024. Howie Hawkins lost me in the 2020 election by half-believing Blue Anons’ worst claims about Russiagate, and even worse, under the deep control of his Maoist 2.0 handlers (sic, in a tankie-like way) Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, full-on regurgitating the Chinese-based denialism of the likes of Max Blumenthal on stuff like slave labor in Xinjiang. (Ken Silverstein nailed Blumenthal and Aaron Maté.)

But, Soltysik died in 2020, so he wouldn’t be available in 2024, and per that top link, the eventual SPUSA candidate, Bill Stodden, was and is insipid and uninspiring, not to mention ballot-access lethargic. Meanwhile, by 2022, in part due to changes in Texas ballot access law meaning for fewer candidates, Texas Greens were losing me, too. But, the main reason they lost me was the 2022 gubernatorial candidate.

That said, Cornel West as a Green didn’t inspire me even before he spit the bit on the Green Party. There’s less to “see through” on him than there was on Tulsi Gabbard, whom I saw through way back in 2016, but I knew he wasn’t who he gets cracked up to be. Then, out came three-time retread Stein, and when she didn’t address her investments, it was time to look further. Per that top link, I had settled on the PSL even before the official list of Texas write-ins came out, and de la Cruz was the only person to the left of Stein.)

(Side note here: It’s time to throw the infatuation Counterpunch editor Jeff St. Clair and managing editor Joshua Frank still seem to have for Ralph Nader under the bus. Nader officially endorsed Biden, albeit shortly before he became Genocide Joe. That said, he never backed off that endorsement, nor the acceptance of lesser evilism behind it. And, recently commenting about that, I said that Nader reminds me of Cornel West’s brief Green bromance. The 2004 Green Party’s national organization details weren’t all good, but they weren’t all bad, either, and they weren’t all anti-Nader. More here on how Nader didn’t want to play ball with Greens. Also per the first link in the paragraph, Nader is arguably anti-labor and unarguably personally a bad boss, on the record from both Kurt Eichenwald and Kevin Shorrock. He also jumped in bed with Randall Terry over Terri Schiavo. And, St. Clair and Frank will tell you none of that, should they know it, or want to know it.)

OK, to the subhed.

Many in-depth political writers know Raimondo, and know also his many political perigrinations.

So, we’re wrapping up this long piece.

First, 16 months ago, which is four years after his death, I submitted a piece, rewritten here at Substack, about a real peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine war to both Antiwar, the site he founded, and Counterpunch. CP never responded; I don’t think I sent it to St. Clair’s personal email. Eric Garris at Antiwar called it “A bit too snarky for us (quite a bit.)” I then blogged about that rejection slip.

Per Bruce Springsteen, I wondered there, “Antiwar: What’s it good for?”

I did more of that in my semi-takedown obituary.

First, I partially disagreed with him over Bosnia, like I did Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch. Even today, having moved yet further left, I can see the work of the American imperium with how we handled Bosnia, while also stipulating Serbian war crimes were real (as were the Croatian ones we ignored).

Second? The political peregrinations. Raimondo was openly gay, yet voted for Pat Buchanan for president three straight times, even though the Libertarian Party was readily available. He then jumped to Nader in 2004 (remember that St. Ralph ran an independent non-Green campaign). As part of that, Raimondo called Nader “a voice of the Old Right.” He also was in bed with Lew Rockwell at times, and kissed Trump’s butt not too long before he died. And, he, and even more Garris and Scott Horton, were/are conspiracy theorist nutters.

My political peregrinations aren’t like that. They’re consistent, and born of growing frustration.

On economic issues? I’m a postcapitalist, not an anticapitalist, for one thing. And, I think that Marxism is a pseudoscience as an economic theory.

So, looking ahead?

The Greens can nominate a 2024 candidate who’s not a lightweight, which all of this year’s Stein opponents were, nor a retread, nor Chinese controlled opposition like Stein. The SPUSA can nominate a better candidate than Bill Stodden.

Or, like a Dallas Morning News story nearly 20 years ago following up on Dallas-area 1960s and 1970s civil rights activists, I can become yet less interested in electoral politics.