US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died, which means the US election is going to revolve around abortion and other civil rights for the foreseeable future. Which won’t change much since this presidential race hasn’t really been about anything since the end of the Democratic primaries.
The opportunistic galvanization process has already begun before Ginsburg’s body is even cold, with liberal influencers calling Democrats to rally to a November win for “the notorious RBG” and Trump supporters dropping their faux anti-establishment schtick and metamorphosing into a bunch of mini-Mitch McConnells. Leftists are being shrieked at by mainstream Dems that they need to fall in line and support Biden or they’re personally responsible for every civil right that is taken away by Ginsburg’s replacement.
I’m not here to tell Americans how to vote in November. I’d just like to quickly point out once again that an establishment which threatens to remove your civil rights if you don’t support it is an establishment that doesn’t deserve to exist.
Of course it doesn’t look like that’s what’s happening if you subscribe to the mainstream consensus perspective that America’s political system has two separate and oppositional parties. If that is your viewpoint, you will see one bad party trying to take away people’s civil liberties and one good party trying to stop them.
If however you recognize that America has two parties that are owned and operated by a single oligarchic class which has more or less the same overarching goal as far as ordinary people are concerned, it looks completely different.
If you understand that America has a two-headed one-party system designed to shrink the spectrum of acceptable debate down to arguments about how oligarchic agendas should be facilitated rather than if they should, what you see is a single entity threatening to take away your civil liberties if you don’t support it. A single establishment threatening to punch you with its right hand if you don’t let it punch you with its left.
What is the correct response to such a situation? Is it to give the two-headed monster what it wants? Is it to give your energy to supporting the same establishment which is threatening to take away your civil rights?
Or is it to fight? Is it to pour your energy into tearing down an abusive political system which threatens to rob your civil rights if you don’t plug yourself into the mainstream oligarchic establishment? A system which throughout your entire life has done nothing but rob you and pour your nation’s wealth into wars, tax cuts and ever-expanding neoliberal exploitation regardless of how you’ve voted?
If you think the correct response is the latter, consider refraining from giving your energy to the Supreme Court debate in the coming months and focus on waking people up to what’s really going on in the world so that they can see their two-headed abuser for themselves.
Again, vote or don’t vote in whatever way you think best; how Americans choose to participate in a pretend election is none of my concern. But do be mindful of those who try to route your energy into a political establishment that has never served you and never will.
That’s all for now.
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56 responses to “RBG Death Means Two-Headed Uniparty Will Threaten Americans With Removal Of Civil Rights”
The revolution will not be televised.
Back in the 2016 I set comments of Professor Melina Abdullah to the Great Track The Revolution will not be televised By Gil Scott Heron.
“I was blown away by the appearance of Melina Abdullah of Black Lives Matters on Democracy now yesterday following the Sanders win in the Michigan Primary. Professor Abdullah made a persuasive case for those interested in real change in the US not to become over-invested in a democratic (sic) process simply not designed as democratic in the sense of By the people for the people. The process is corrupt however hard Sanders or in a charitable case, Clinton and even Trump push back against. Its wider than that and the African American viewpoint is not something as A white Male expatriate white British Male in Sweden could ever understand let alone articulate so Reading Professors work as I have Dr. Cornell Wests ( Race Matters for instance) will provide me something of a shadow in the Allegory of the Cave. Cornell West inspired my Track Blues Man in the life of the mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jadV… and when Professor Abdullah mentioned and quite obviously referenced the Great Gil Scott Herons the revolution will not be televised I had to just edit that together along with some of the words of my Favorite living Philosopher Cornell West, and of Course the Dangerous Dude from the Brooklyn Hood Bernie Sanders. What happens in the US is more important to my Country of Birth The United Kingdom than the referendum to leave the EU, My blog on that can be found here”.
https://youtu.be/ZISMnCbYB1c
Since then we have had Brexit, President Trump all manner of “False Flag” terror, Skripal, PeeGate, New Zealand Mosques, London Bridge, Manchester Arena, Outrages in Every Continent and now #Contrick19
I put together this primer for the 26th September Rally in Trafalgar Square London touching on the Oligarchical Nature of the present rush to Serfdoms Brave new World for the 1% – 5% and 1984 for the rest of you.
https://www.yumpu.com/s/KbrvsaIlNRXn8xHF
Thanks for this, Caitlin; I needed to read it. The thought of Trump appointing an anti-choice candidate to the Supreme Court leading to the overturn of Roe v. Wade had me prepared to give in to the neocon, neoliberal elite as the only way of assuring that women are not forced to give birth unwanted children and that unwanted children are not forced to grow up unnurtured, unloved, and helplessly, inescapably miserable. Childhood emotional neglect and abuse is just as traumatic as physical and sexual abuse; it is responsible for severe dissociation, depression, and lifelong mental illness in children and adults. “Pro-life” is blind, cruel, and evil. Heterosexuals should have free access to good prophylactics and safe, easily available abortions. Sex is not evil. All children deserve to be wanted and loved from the very start of their existence.
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Someone should inform Trump that the majority of voters are pro-choice.
Honestly, there should be another category, pro-abortion. These are the people that attempt to sexualize children at younger and younger ages. The dispicable show/movie Cuties for example. I don’t believe it’s about sexual freedom. It’s about grooming children to have sex and abortions earlier in life. It’s a shameful, reprehensible, immoral tactic leading to more abortions and steering towards the acceptance of pedophilia.
Sorry, James, but I don’t see the connection between the sexualization of children, which is a sick and abhorrent perversion, and allowing women to decide whether or not to bear children.
Abortion and pro choice are NOT about the decision to bear children or not. That decision can be made and carried out before the need for an abortion 97% of the time. Your malice of forethought is part of the moral decay I am talking about.
Ugh. I’d forgotten how ugly, disgusting, and hateful antichoice could be.
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Now I’m back to where I was before reading Caitlin’s essay. Maybe it IS worth risking more wars and further subjugation of the middle and lower classes to corporate power if we can save women and girls from the murderous rage of these depraved and hateful misogynists.
I’m sorry, I know see who you are and what you are about. You aren’t about discussing and solving real problems and helping all people. You are in plain terms, what R. Limbaugh calls a Feminazi.
Dems that they need to fall in line and support Biden.
And the hundred mile long iceberg which will cause an earthquake when in hits the shore? Line up along the beach with hair dryers.
Ha!
Yup, pretty much what I am planning to do.
I have a bumper sticker for everybody:
“Biden nominates Anita Hill”
And thanks Caitlin for everything!
Only 61% of eligible voters voted in the last 2 elections, not exactly a ¨mandate¨ for any candidate. Clearly a fukTON of us are not but so ¨plugged into the oligarchic establishment¨ or all het up about the elections. W and trump didn´t even win the popular vote, but this damn sure didn´t limit their power ; guess I´m just saying that voting hardly blesses the regime with the imprimatur of the people. I want my kids to have access to healthcare, my friends not to be deported or shot by cops, all of us to be housed and able to eat ,and value and resources to be placed on educating everybody as doctors, electricians, farmers etc. And nothing I´ve done thus far has gotten us any closer to this. Open to suggestions.
“If voting made any difference, it would be illegal” — Emma Goldman
Support the Socialist Equality Party.
“…the US election is going to revolve around abortion and other civil rights for the foreseeable future. Which won’t change much since this presidential race hasn’t really been about anything since the end of the Democratic primaries.”
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This election will come down to the theme of “Law and Order”. Democrats now have earned a reputation of either promoting or amply tolerating “lawlessness”. And as usual, the current leader in control of the levers of government always falls back on The Law and Order Theme which always sells well to most Americans (this has all played out before, notably in 1968 for example.) Whatever chances the Dems had in this election have been squandered by their own cluelessness to see how their own actions were doing themselves in without any help from Trump.
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“A single establishment threatening to punch you with its right hand if you don’t let it punch you with its left.”
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Americans seem to have a need for easy, simplistic answers. Like… One party good, other party bad. The notion that they are all working together to do people in is just too uncomfortable for Americans to process regardless of how much evidence there is to show them this is the case. If both parties bad, then what? You mean I have to DO something myself about this? That’s way too messy and I just don’t have the time! I just want to vote and convince myself I did something useful!
All Americans are far from this cliché. Many of us are active in the struggle for socialism. That involves a lot more than voting. That demands revolution.
Only the uninformed and ignorant want socialism. If Americans had the will to accomplish two things, term limits and the ability to eliminate waste in government spending, you could have a mix of socialism and Capitalism with endless possibilities.
I see one advantage to a Biden win – it would mean that I wouldn’t be forced, when I can’t avoid it, to have to listen to the insults and total lies coming from Trump’s mouth multiple times a day, nearly daily. Those of us who know how to think for ourselves and to properly research, don’t believe any of the lies on either side. However, while the Democrat lies are soft pedaled, Trump’s are an insult to the intelligence of a moppulace that is dominated by people far smarter than Trump is.
Sorry – populace, not moppulace. I didn’t type the latter, but sometimes my wireless keyboard goes wacko.
You’re not forced to listen. Get rid of your TV, for a start. Stop listening to mainstream media propaganda.
Rioting does no good.
Protesting does no good.
Writing your congressman no good
Voting does no good.
Store away sone extra food and get a gun for personal protection, then hope for the best.
Bunker thinking does no good. This type of individualism is antisocial.
The right to abortion has be been won by he anti abortionists , as the political spectrum has moved right globally. Abortion in the US is highly restricted and discouraged by the medical profession everywhere even China and India. It will not be an issue in the coming election. The Next SCOTUS nominee will be further right than Kavanaugh regardless of whom ascends to the POTUS throne.
Oh, maybe, maybe not. Politics often works in paradoxical ways. If Trump appoints and the Senate confirms a blatant anti-abortionist, it will infuriate a lot of people, who will punish not only Trump but the Senate Republicans as well, if they can. It might also cause a serious, instead of a pretend ‘Resistance’ to arise against the Republicans and their conservative Democrat allies. It will exacerbate the culture wars which are going to make the country more and more difficult for the ruling class to govern and exploit. If Trump does _not_ appoint a blatant anti-abortionist, that will offend much of his White male supremacist base. So Trump and company are in a difficult position with an uncertain outcome. No doubt there is some heavy-duty plotting going on. More fat has fallen into the fire!
Resistance from whom? Rich suburban women, the people both parties want to have as their customer bases, can afford a weekend trip to a neighboring first world country to clean up their Tom-and-Daisy accidents, and they are of sufficiently elevated class to make even noticing any change in their gravid condition absolutely taboo.
If Trump weren’t just a wrestling promoter toying with us and accomplishing his class interests via oblique ways, he’d immediately nominate Anita Hill without skipping a beat.
Not in Trump’s America. Americans are no longer welcome in many countries. Including the entire EU. The passport office is currently only issuing passports for emergency reasons.
Sorry Anarcissie, disagree. There is no white male supremicist base. That’s an outright lie perpetuated by Democrats every election. Secondly, there isn’t enough white male supremacists to win any election anywhere.
Caitlin, I agree with what you say, but how do we wake people up? People are so identified with their beliefs and their thoughts, and these run so deep. In most cases it is generational. An open mind is a rare thing. It seems nearly impossible to get them to listen or to consider seeing things differently. It’s very frustrating to know how to vote, at least for president, when there are no good options. I think many of us here in the US feel that we just don’t know what to do. I know we’re all responsible for letting this happen, but how on earth do we stop it? It’s incredibly sad and scary. Thanks for your writings.
Read the World Socialist Web Site. We Marxists have been fighting for a long time. “We” are not responsible for this. Stop putting the blame on people who have been misled and start educating them.
Lynn, if you think curtailing the UN is taking away Civil Rights, you are ignorantly mistaken. Taking away Civil Rights is the backbone of ONE world government. The UN is all about ONE world government. You need to watch a little Mcduff- Kennedy’s man to smash the CIA on youtube
We live in a global society and global economy and have done so for decades. Denying this fact will get you nowhere. The nation state has outlived its usefulness and now acts as a fetter on any advancement of humanity. This is the 21st century, not the 19th.
Global totalitarian rule of any variety looks nightmarish to me, Carolyn. Prior to the current takeover by global capitalism, we had democratically elected nation states representing and answerable to their own geographically delineated set of citizens. The reins of power, though tugged at by private interests, remained in the hands of an informed electorate. Reagan, Clinton, and Bush dismantled our once workable democracy. Governments should always be responsive to the needs and preferences of their citizens.
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Lately I’m horrified by wsws’ insistence on total lock-down, total repression of American citizens by the government. I favor economic fairness AND personal autonomy, both. I wouldn’t want any governing boot on my neck, no matter what its ideology.
Well said. My thoughts exactly.
Remember Merrick Garland?
Republicans stood as one, refusing to confirm Garland, nor any other commie that Obama might nominate, demanding that the next Republican President choose the appointee.
I would be genuinely shocked if Democrats did any such thing now, since their agenda and the Republicans’ are actually the same.
But whether the Dems put up some temporary, token resistance to another authoritarian corporatist on the Supremes, we can be sure that covid, the economy, healthcare and everything else will now be subsumed into SCOTUS Theater.
Remember Merrick Garland?
Republicans stood as one, refusing to confirm Garland, nor any other commie that Obama might nominate.
I would be genuinely shocked if Democrats did any such thing now, since their agenda and the Republicans’ are actually the same.
But whether the Dems put up some temporary, token resistance to another authoritarian corporatist on the Supremes, we can be sure that covid, the economy, healthcare and everything else will now be subsumed into SCOTUS Theater.
Take your right-wing anticommunist rant to Breitbart.
I would say take yours Carolyn to your World socialist website, but we conservative right wingers prefer debate, not hate.
No you don’t!
There is nothing conservative about printing up $5trillion over 3 months to prop up a dying stock market. There is nothing conservative about creating the TSA and DHS. These things were all done under supposed conservative right wing administrations.
You prefer lies, hypocrisy and Stockholm syndrome.
I agree. I despise the Patriot Act. I am conservative, but very few Republicans are.
Your description could easily fit into the Australian political scenario right now too.
However there seems to be an emerging ideological split in America between the progressive left & establishment democrats, and respectively Blue blood republicans & Trump conservatives, as predicted by Webster Griffin Tarpley in 2015
“Again, vote or don’t vote in whatever way you think best; how Americans choose to participate in a pretend election is none of my concern.”
It is of concern to people everywhere, because this same “pretend” system is in place in England, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Israel, and most of the other so-called “democratic” countries in the world. It is naturally a fake system because it is controlled by a private club of very powerful sociopaths who accomplish their goals using sophisticated deception and manipulation. And their goals are controlling and exercising power over everyone on the planet. The COVID-19 scamdemic is just the most recent example. There is worse to come as the screws are gradually tightened.
Meanwhile, Until another system evolves, those we vote for control how our earnings are expended. They control our health, our education, our aspirations, and opportunities. We have no other system within which to live. We can’t be content with saying both sides are different heads on the same dragon. The only option for us is to make the least worst choice and incrementally bend away from the path of corruption until we arrive at a place where the new system is birthed
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil. A vote for either lends credence to whichever wins, which won’t be you. I will not authorize my destruction, and that of my progeny, by participating in such theater. There are abundant alternative systems. As abundant as different communities. Which if each were “allowed” to govern themselves would produce the best results, or its people would vote in the most effective manner, with their feet. Which feet would also carry away their wallet as well, which no state can survive without.
One cannot ‘vote with feet’ if there is nowhere to go and/or if you are “locked down” b’cuz Covidiocy-19.
One cannot “vote with the wallet” once crypto-currencies replace cash and other financial vehicles.
Just an FYI…
You are living in the past. This anodyne attitude has created what we have now in the U.S. Two right-wing parties of imperialism. You must stop supporting it if you really want change. Far too many complacent people like you sit wringing your hands and doing nothing but perpetuating an evil system!
I wonder if you have any idea what is going on your own back yard in Victoria. I find it really scary what is happening in such a supposedly free country of wild and woolly Ozzies.
If you had any interest in facts and any capacity for independent research you would know I’ve written and tweeted about it plenty.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/09/07/at-a-time-of-rapidly-creeping-authoritarianism-assanges-freedom-is-more-crucial-than-ever/
What’s going on in Victoria is a combination of organised chaos and the old SNAFU.
The Right are contradicting the Left and vice versa.The PM is criticising the Premiers.
Some of Rupert’s rodents support the lockdown while others don’t.
The Premier of Victoria is following the advice of health ‘experts’ who can’t agree with each other and the police don’t know their arses from their elbows.
It’s SNAFU writ large the world over.
Vote, don’t vote. It will make no difference. “The rich are only defeated when running for their lives” — CLR James.
It DOES make a difference! If you feel both major parties are evil, why vote at all? I refuse to vote at election time because I believe both ARE evil, and secondly, how can you make an informed decision when MSM outlets, including Facestain, Twitter and youshit, are ALL manipulating the outcome? Making false accusations, misleading, and outright deceit! Why? Because they ALL work for the Deep State, including many of our Parliamentarians, Danial Andrews certainly comes to mind as one of the dirty whores!
I could have been clearer (but more long-winded like this): in the upcoming US presidential elections, no-one is worthy of a vote and therefore voting for one candidate or another, or not voting at all, won’t change anything. The capitalists will still rule through their representatives and their state machine.
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Of course it would be wonderful and likely make a bit of a difference if 95% of eligible voters boycotted the elections instead of the usual 45%. It might make the rulers somewhat more worried than usual about their ‘democratic’ charade, their ‘legitimacy’. The full extent of the difference of not voting, if enough don’t vote, could be an ongoing crisis of legitimacy. So an electoral boycott can certainly be a good tactic — if there’s no viable alternative to all the rotten bourgeois parties running and only if enough refuse to vote as a protest against the horrible lack of choice presented by the bourgeoisie in their electoral theatre.
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It’s also worth noting that voting for a US president is like electing a king or tsar or dictator with an unelected cabinet, a cabal of cronies with unaccountable power to unleash the state machine onto anyone they or the capitalist class (don’t) like. And running for executive office, or voting for someone running for executive office, is basically accepting that someone can have the power of life and death over anyone in the population subject to their rule. No-one should ever be bullied into voting for anyone running for executive office, especially the US presidency with their finger on the nuclear button.
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Marxists have always contended that, in general for the vast majority, voting in bourgeois elections is nothing more than giving ordinary people a ‘choice’ of who will oppress them for the next few years. However, this is never to exclude communists running for (non-executive) representative positions, in order to use the parliamentary or congressional hot-air factory as a platform and tribune for revolutionary propaganda and agitation.
Thank You, Ms Ruth Bader Ginsburg for your many years of dedicated service to the people of the United States of America. May you now Rest In Peace. Hopefully many more women will find inspiration from your life of service to humanity.
That woman was an evil, vile, baby-killing Molech worshiping villain. She supported and enabled a Jezebel spirit to empower feminism and destruction of family values.
Good riddance that thing died. (Psalm 28:28) However, I bet that satanic woman died years ago. One does not live years with pancreatic cancer unless you play politics.
“Family values” are a psychopathic and neoliberal rationalization to get families competing against each other instead of killing all the oligarchs together. Wipe the shoe polish off your tongue and come back later when you can stop being neoliberal.
“Family values”? Is that the kind of thing disgusting hypocrites like the Falwells promote in public and do the opposite in their private lives? Good one.
I don’t care what people do in their private lives, but don’t put on a holier-than-thou facade and try to legislate the curtailing of how other people live. And especially don’t plant one’s lips on the arse of phony scum like Trump, pretending he’s so pure and righteous.
Uniparties are de rigueur all around our beleaguered planet.
‘If voting made any difference it would be illegal’ (Twain).
Anarchy, rules WITHOUT Rulers, is how Mother Nature has nurtured the Earth for tens of millions of years. It has the longest beneficient track record of all.
The hubris of humans will bring us undone. Soon.
Perfect comment, and under a perfect editorial. Voluntaryists rule! 😀 And I mean that.
Right On.
Yeah , well when trump, gave both the UN and the International Court the finger, and by default also took away our human rights, and no one here in the US, that I’m aware of, expressed any complaints about it, our Civil Rights were already taken away. As it is and has been for some time we’ve had only pretend rights, or rights only for the very few select. Ruth will be no great loss, because the Court itself died decades ago, if not in fact long before the death of Abraham Lincoln.