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I am not indifferent to the slaughter and starvation of the people in Gaza, but I have come to be very afraid of what will happen to my family and the United States of America if Trump wins the election due due to the 2025 plan. I must vote for Biden while I speak against sending weapons to Israel. What else can we do?

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Maybe stand up against both Trump and Biden, to both Republicans and Democrats. Maybe say no to the two cheeks of the same ass? (to steal a phrase from George Galloway). Maybe vote for Jill Stein or Cornell West?

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Another rationalization to justify voting for an open genocide.

Own it.

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Have you read the 2025 plan? When oxygen is required on an airplane, there is a good reason to put your own mask on before putting the oxygen mask on your children.

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We heard the same hysteria in 2016. Somehow, humanity survived.

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Imperfect as it is, our democratic republic is currently the only realistic political option we have for dealing with horrible moral dilemmas facing this country. A Trump victory is a victory nihilistic chaos and authoritarian aspirations. At least with Biden we have a leader, however imperfect, professes to believe in the US Constitution and rule of law. With Biden a political mechanism would exist by which to make moral improvement. With Trump there is not even the recognition of moral improvement.

One may want to argue that the probability of moral improvement under Biden is very small. But very small is greater than zero.

Like you, Gloria, I will pursue the option that best ensures Trump not winning. And I think Biden is that option.

In 1968, many Democrats said they could not bring themselves to vote for Humphrey because he was morally compromised. Nixon won. Now look at our situation. If that is "humanity surviving" I'm not impressed.

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I don't see any leader in Biden unless you are talking of the leading politician accepting Jewish lobby's bribes (over US$4'400.000 so far) and yes, "he professes to believe in the US Constitution and rule of law" just like any other politician, but he forgets that our laws prohibit to sell guns or give any help to terrorist's organizations like Israel. Would have been Humphrey better than Nixon? Has been Biden better than Trump? What I have observed is that our country has been in an increasing decline since the 1980 no matter which party has been in power because we all know we are under a corporate dictatorship. I got tired of this game and for a long time I have been voting only for third parties to protest the status quo.

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I cannot say with any kind of certainty that Humphrey would have been better than Nixon, but my sense at the time based upon his support of civil rights was a large part of my reason to support him.

I do believe that Biden as you point out has many short-comings. But I do not believe another four years of his being president will usher in an authoritarian regime. I believe Trump's would.

Do I wish there were other alternatives for president that I considered viable -- read "electable"? Yes.

I have no illusions about what my approach will produce. At best, it is stop-gap. I appreciate your disgust with the continuing decay or our politics.

Something really different has to happen to give us a real choice. I wish I had something unique to offer, but I don't.

Best.

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For my part I chose not to participate in the decay, and from my selfish point of view, to avoid being repented and ashamed to have casted my vote as I was in the past on several occasions.

Best.

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If Muh Democratic Republic (don't make me laugh!) gives us a choice between Biden and Trump then perhaps it is best to toss it aside if that is the best it can do.

"By their fruits ye shall know them."

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I think you are a confused person, mistaking a regulative ideal for a constitutive ideal, when you are not making ad hominem comments. I do not take your comments seriously.

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Oh dear, John doesn't take my comments seriously. Whatever shall I do?

I am saying that if this is what the system belches up, then maybe we need a different system.

Anyway, I haven't made a single ad hominem.

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Tell yourself that you have not committed an ad hominem. Your tone, which is contemptuous and patronizing, says it all.

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Even if that were true, even of i should be encouraging and nice to people as they twist themselves into knots trying to rationalize support for a genocidaire, that's not an ad hominem.

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The future is unwritten, although many pretend to already read the tea leaves. Do we relativize - make compromises over - what we know is antilife? cruelty? barbarism? unspeakable maddened violence? Do we stay in the present trusting our inner guidance about what serves life today?Americans today have a President who votes for genocide. Can you stomach that?

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Thank you Selina. I for one cannot stomach that. There is no "lesser of two evils." There is only evil. Both are anti-life, cruel, barbaric and violent. They both lie through their senile teeth. We have the illusion that we are spared, but it is only a matter of time where the forces of fascism are growing. There are many actions we can take, and votes we can cast, that are morally sound. Will they make a difference? In the short run, and certainly in the long run, absolutely.

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And it needs to be added: These two "choices" are both straw men, tools of the military-industrial complex, oil conglomerates, financial elites, etc. that have been running this show for some time and raping and pillaging, as in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, most of Africa, Central America and on and on and on all over the world It's past time to throw back the curtain and not take part in their horribly cruel and destructive rampage!

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What else can we do? Anything else. Forgive me, but your solution lacks both courage and imagination. And of course a vote for Biden is very likely a vote for Harris, one of the most odious figures in recent political history. IтАЩm with Mr. Hedges, I wouldnтАЩt vote for Biden if you held a gun to m head.

A Trump presidency lacks one critical feature of a Biden 2.0: It probably wonтАЩt be better, but it canтАЩt be seen as a reward for whatтАЩs happening now.

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Not to mention that liberals and the MSM might suddenly rediscover human rights, if Trump and not Biden were presiding over the atrocities.

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There is so much more to exercising one's democratic rights than casting a vote for a president in a republic where your vote doesn't fully count anyway. Think about how you "vote" with your time, energy, and money. Protest, join the Green Party, send letters to your local newspaper, send money to genuinely progressive candidates who are under attack by anti-progressives within their own party.

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Aurora Levins Morales says that when we vote for President we only vote to choose our enemy. Biden is the better enemy based on domestic policy.

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