White fragility, SJW Manicheanism

That was the snappiest title I could think of for my review of Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility." I've not added much to the Goodreads review of this book, written in 2018 but newly trending after George Floyd's death.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A deeply problematic book, for both better and for worse, but primarily for worse.

First, let me “qualify” myself.

I am a White leftist. Not liberal. Leftist, at least for America. Related, while I don’t go as far as Doug Henwood and claim that issues of race almost always, and almost completely, reduce to issues of class, I believe they often do at least to some degree.

Second, while I don’t always use the phrase “social justice warrior” pejoratively, I do often have healthy skepticism about those who might be characterized as such.

Third, I reject the author’s definition of racism, period. Here’s why.

Individuals of any so-called race can be racist, first, and with racist, sexist, ageist, and “religionist” (more on that in a moment), the “-ist” is always the adjective to the “-ism.” Period. So, good linguistics and philosophy of language says reject her definition on that grounds alone.

Part two of that? Minorities can be and indeed are racist, not just to Whites, but to other minorities. I’ve seen and heard instances of this.

Part three? Contra her claim that only Whites have the power to induce what we might call “sociological racism,” since I need a qualifier to her definition of racism (pace Wittgenstein) to talk about it, this is not true. First, to go to “religionism,” the religious-based parallel to racism? The anti-goy stance of certain ultra-Orthodox Jews plays out sociologically, and to some degree legally, in a place like Kiryas Joel. Anti-White (or anti-Jewish) racism by Nation of Islam plays out within in neighborhoods within Black-majority areas where NOI “patrols” have degrees of control over the neighborhood.

So, no, racism is a mindset, a mentality, a psychology, not a structure. That said, a majority group with overall national power (but see point three above) has the greatest possibility of making sociological racism systemic. I don’t argue with DiAngelo on that at all. That said, with that said, “systematic racism,” not “racism,” is what she’s talking about. Eventually, it would become tiresome to repeat that over and over, but it should have been done at the start, and on occasions after.

Of course, I’m sure she’d reject my definition as much as I reject hers.

Near the end of Chapter 2, she does around the edges cherrypicking on some stats. She also either does cultural cherrypicking or shows cultural ignorance when lumping “Chinese food” with everything else. Most Chinese food in the US that is not historically in mainland China was invented by Chinese Americans not Whites. Crab Rangoon is the only notable exception. She also totally misframes Jackie Robinson, claiming that no whites have ever seen his becoming the first Black in baseball as she says it actually was.

Chapter 3? Most examples of what she cites as things that fall under so-called “new racism” aren’t new. Well, they may be new temporally, but the ideas aren’t new. Second, without stereotyping, yes, Blacks may apply for some jobs in fewer numbers. We know that Religious Right types don’t pursue jobs in secular academia, then have people like Jonathan Haidt claim this is an example of bias in academia. Next, more of her data points are snapshots, not synchronous views of changes, and possible improvements.

I skipped the next chapter because an N=1 anecdote from her personal life isn’t data.

Chapter 5? She talks about “good-bad binary” while ignoring the irony or more, as in hypocrisy, that her whole book is about making “White fragility” into one half of a binary, one end of a polarity. This includes a presumption that “color-blind” statements are always wrong and that only “color-celebrate” statements are allowed. At this point, per John McWhorter’s review (below) I had to wonder how much of this book was coming from a place of huge lake of self-awareness.

And for all her white liberal (not leftist) earnestness? A John McWhorter, no radical (actually, overall, a Black conservative, but not a Tim Scott wingnut) says she still comes off as talking down to Black people. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/arc...

“I have learned that one of America’s favorite advice books of the moment is actually a racist tract,” McWhorter says.

McWhorter totally agrees with me on Robinson and other things.

One biggie is calling her a “shape shifter,” noting how she can claim at one point that most Whites are unaware of their “privilege” but, just a few pages later, describing them in general as tribalist.

He makes a couple of other good points. One is that DiAngelo seemingly wants to have all White people wear hair shirts, saying that for her, it’s about the suffering, not the solutions.

The second, per my “introduction,” is that she writes class out of the issue entirely. McWhorter admits he has suffered “at the margins” from racism, but that in general, with the civil rights movement, he’s not done too badly.

A third point is one that, being White, I can’t speak to directly, but he says that she “infantilizes” black people.

Finally, per McWhorter’s observation that his book reads like a diversity seminar training manual, maybe that’s what it IS! There’s plenty of gold in them thar hills! From Melanin Base Camp making boatloads of false accusations in a High Country News piece to other things, can and do minorities (as well as “woke” librul Whites) with money to make off this issue lie? Well, is a bear a Presbyterian? Does the pope shit in the woods?

Speaking of, why is DiAngelo a former professor and current consultant? Did she screw the pooch at university and get her tenure bid rejected? Or, per grifting, is there more money in diversity training? That then gets back to race and class issues.

That said, while McWhorter is honest enough to admit that he has benefitted a fair amount from socioeconomic class, he fails to note the obvious corollary: Many non-White people, including Blacks, haven’t. The “why” of that is itself, per Idries Shah, an issue with MANY more than two sides.

THAT then said, this gets back to a big problem with the book: the issue IS, contra guilt-trips DiAngelo wants to put on fellow White librulz, more than two-sided.

This is one of those books that I eventually gave two stars not one, and in part for one big reason: its revelation of the author’s mindset. The other reason it gets two stars not one is that, even at 25 percent of face value, her anecdotes remind us there is still plenty of work to do in America on racial issues, even though she and people like her are NOT the ones, White or Black — or Hispanic, South Asian, East Asian or American Indian — that we need to be leading the effort.


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So, Luther vs Springer in the SD30 runoff

That's what it's looking like at 10 p.m., and I'm not surprised. Contra Brains (and others, Dems or Green-leaners, engaging in wishful thinking) I never expected Jacob Minter to crash his D into the runoff.

And, after hearing the Gainesville debate among Rethugs, I knew that Chris Watts hadn't done enough to distinguish himself from Shelly Luther, Drew Springer, Craig Carter and Andy Hopper, to pick up non-wingnut votes that would go to Minter instead. I mean, the Denton mayor couldn't even win the half of Denton County that's in the district.

So, will Springer's buying up RealShelleyLuther.com have an effect in the runoff more than it did in the initial round? Possibly, but that much?

Will any of the three R runners up endorse anybody? I mean, I assume Carter and Hopper backers break Luther, and Watts' probably breaks Springer, even without endorsements, but that could help turnout.

And, what will Minter's backers do. Stay home?

After all, the logical date for the runoff (yea, ballots have already been printed, but still) is Nov. 3, but we know that the same Gov. Strangebbott who cooked up this special election date along with Springer and the departing Pat Fallon would choose ANY date besides that, even if ballot printing costs were no object. 

It will of course be after Nov. 3., but when? Is Strangeabbott hoping that if he waits longer, like December, ignoring his previous tender coronavirus concerns, that the boom for Luther will fade? I doubt it, especially assuming coronavirus ramps up and forces Abbott to be Jesuitical again on social distancing orders.

Texas Progressives talk SD30 special election, Jim Schutze, more

As we await the results of tonight's special election for Texas Senate District 30, most likely seeing which two of the six candidates make a runoff, Texas Progressives is talking about the run-up to that and various other state and national political and social items. Coronavirus news is split off again, but running after the other news and politics roundup due to election timetables reversing the normal order.

That said, one thing this corner of the Progs is not holding his breath over is the first presidential debate tonight. I'll be swimming in my apartment pool, eating late dinner and checking Twitter feeds after that, but that's it.

With that, let's dig in!

Texas

At Texas Monthly, Peter Holley asks if Shelley Luther's callout of Strangeabbott as a tyrant will help her win the SD30 special election. It's a damn good question, and the race is clearly getting feisty, complete with Drew Springer, the man who hates public schools, buying the URL for RealShelleyLuther.com. That said, Uncle Drew does have some good takedowns, including her being a coronavirus closure Karen. (My take on the race here. Assuming there's a runoff, I'll have a take on that shortly.)

Off the Kuff stays on top of the voting litigation news, with updates about the wingnut assault on early voting, and the probably short-lived reinstatement of straight-ticket voting, which Kuff unironically and without self-reflection salutes while ignoring the state's duopoly parties and state government all working together to restrict third-party voting. My take on the crock of shit ruling here.

I guess Jim Schutze didn't have enough Amber Guyger stanning at the Dallas Observer. He's now taken it to D Mag.

Malware/phishing has hit Hamilton County's elections office. Will this ramp up in weeks ahead? 

Austin is SOOO liberal on things like plastic bags. On stuff that really matters? It has finally stepped forward, as the Observer notes in talking about the city's 30-year war on homelessness, recently reversed.

Corona Connor draws some interesting maps of CD10, one of the three Congressional districts from 2018 that Beto carried but the Republican incumbent won. 

Busi Peters-Maughan implores us to respect and care for the Black matriarchs in our community. 

Grits for Breakfast calls Greg Abbott's pro-police "reforms" a distraction from his failures on COVID-19. 

Fernando Ramirez reports on Barack Obama's latest round of endorsements, which includes MJ Hegar for Senate. 

Climate change national/global

SocraticGadfly shakes his head at bipartisan foreign policy establishment doyens still too ready to guzzle Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid, in this case on climate change, along with notes about the Kabuki theater that is the UN General Assembly opening. (An upcoming post will look at certain non-skeptical leftists too willing to guzzle Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid on Uyghur camps.

New Mexico's new (from last year) laws on oil and gas emissions control appear laden with loopholes, especially on methane. Given that ConservaDem Gov Michelle Lujan Grisham touted them, is this any surprise?

Speaking of ConservaDem govs in love with Big Oil? The former Mayor Pothole, Gavin Newsom, has said one thing but often done another on regulating the industry. The story notes that things are made worse by a lot of California's oil being "heavy" and thus having additional carbon costs.

National-other

AOC tells liberal Zionists where to get off on a Rabin memorial she claims was misrepresented to her.

A reminder that the Federalist Society isn't wingnut Protestant Religious Right, it's Opus Dei Catholic like, or more specifically, Knights of Malta based. But, as the Protestant Religious Right and Israeli politicians are bedfellows of convenience, even as the Catholic headcount on SCOTUS threatens to go to six, the same here.

Conservative Cafeteria Catholics are a real thing (note winger elected officials who ignore church statements against the death penalty as firm as its anti-abortion stance), and Trump is pandering to them by attacking Pope Francis for calling him unchristian. That said, Pope Francis needs to read history. The post-Constantinian Xn-friendly Empire had walls, as did the post-Theodosius II eastern and western empires, in which Christianity was the state religion, although Constantine and his successors started moving away from static walls to defense in depth. See here, and here. This is not an endorsement of Trump, or his wall, nor a denigration of Francis. Rather, as a secularist, it's another marker in the old battle against claims that "Christianity is 'X.'" I also don't totally agree with the second "here." I think Hadrian could and should have held on to more of the Mesopotamia that Trajan had seized from the Parthians than he actually did. Francis' predecessor, Pius X, didn't use a physical wall, but boarded himself up inside the Vatican after 1870 because of the secular Italian state's riffraff, too.

Foreign Policy guzzles Xi Jinping Thought on climate change

China's maximum leader made all sorts of climate change promises to the UN General Assembly kickoff this year, a lollapalooza whose Kabuki theater level rivals that of the Republican National Convention and its Democratic counterpart.

And, per that link above, Foreign Policy largely drank the Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid. I will give it credit for being skeptical, but only partial credit, as that skepticism only starts halfway through the piece:

There are reasons to be skeptical. Xi is not promising an immediate turnaround. The peak will still be expected around 2030. Recent investments in new coal-fired capacity have been alarming. A gigantic 58 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity have been approved or announced just in the first six months of this year. That is equivalent to 25 percent of America’s entire installed capacity and more than China has projected in the previous two years put together. Due to the decentralization of decision-making, Beijing has only partial control over the expansion of coal-burning capacity.

And, it ignores Xi's own past. He, along with Dear Leader Obama, made sure the Paris Accords were largely toothless Jello. 

Back to the piece itself.

Xi is saying this because, per the Kabuki above, the UN General Assembly is always a good time for PR. China, the US, Israel and a few other countries are major players. And, between remaining coronavirus anger, new border skirmishes with India, Belt and Road Project souring by many alleged beneficiary nations and other things, China's got plenty of PR it needs to sow. Speaking of, Xi's actual statement to the UN is itself full of blather, mainly on coronavirus. If Xi REALLY cares about "coming together," drop the opposition to Taiwan joining WHO. (Also not mentioned at FP by Adam Tooze.)

Beyond THAT? Per the link in the pull quote, Chinese shoddy construction, even by US standards, means for a lot of ongoing reconstruction. (Which is also a Chinese regional governors' jobs issue.)  And, that means more construction-related carbon emissions. 

Indeed, that link deserves its own pull quote.

A broad announcement by chairman Xi, and one made in front of the world’s assembled heads of state, has the potential to mobilize the resources of the society and re-align the five-year plan targets. If the signal goes out to the bureaucracy that this vision is something to be implemented from now on, it can kick China’s energy transition into high gear. But one can just as easily imagine a future where this target gets relegated into the category of lofty long-term visions to be addressed by the distant successors of current bureaucrats and state-owned company bosses.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Well, actually, I could have mentioned China's past cheating on carbon emissions.

Beyond THAT THAT? This is the Xi Jinping who got the post-Deng two-term limit on being president tossed for him, and is creating Xi Jinping Thought. 

Beyond THAT THAT THAT? How many of the China-stanners in certain precincts of the left will ALSO guzzle this?

Beyond THAT THAT THAT THAT? Going beyond the worst Trumpian ideas of a national security establishment "deep state," the bipartisan foreign policy establishment incestuousness is a real issue.

Dem-stanning judge reinstates straight ticket voting

A district court has stayed the elimination of straight-ticket voting in Texas. I smell something rotten in Gilberto Hinojosa's Democratic Denmark. And, per and/or contra Kuff, who says the Fifth Circuit will almost certainly overrule this stay, but hopes in a Sam Gamgee way that maybe we're too close for election day for this to happen? Bullshit. Fifth Circuit will boot this thing on its ass, and rightly so. 

Update, Sept. 28: So it has done, on the hold. Expect a permanent ruling by the end of this week.

The idea that individual ballot selection will cause unhealthy undue delays in the light of coronavirus? Fifth Circuit, which has already tossed a 26th-Amendment based suit against restricting voting by mail to senior citizens and the sick, can use that as one angle to overrule Marina Garcia Marmolejo. The 5th can also refer to Strangebbott expanding early voting by a week, and the Texas Supreme Court's "don't ask, don't tell" ruling on asking for a mail ballot. Given that the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans was added as plaintiff after the previous suit failed (and, with a name like that, sounds like a made-up group), the 5th can also, per that failed lawsuit, point toward Texas law and arguably claim it lacks standing as an already protected class. And, that "Texas Alliance" is actually part of an AFL-CIO national alliance. Shock me.

Marmolejo raised rhetorically, then trashed, most of the above arguments in her order.

Also via a Kuff post? Given that Marmolejo tossed the original suit at the end of June, when COVID was already known to be serious, upholding this smells like bullshit. The cases she cites as precedent also seem like bullshit. United States vs Marengo County Commission was about redistricting. So was Kirksey vs Board of Supervisors of Hinds County. I expect the 5th Circuit to trash these graspings at straws.

AND? As part of the update, per the Chronic's link above? Marmolejo offered a NON-CORONAVIRUS reason for trying to restore straight ticket voting.

Just six states continue to use one-punch voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Regardless, Marmolejo said Texas voters have come to rely on it as part of their voting experience and that eliminating the practice would cause more confusion, not less.

BOOM. 

And this, contra the likes of Kuff who claim it's only Rethugs who play politics with electoral issues, is exactly the type of hypocrisy I love to expose.

Also, beyond all of the above legal reasons I listed that Marmolejo's ruling was wrong, per the "Purcell principle," this is the easiest wedge reason for the Fifth Circuit, going beyond the hold, to bounce her ruling entirely.

Yes, the GOP used the straight ticket to get to power, then worried and decided to end it. And? Dems in the old days used it to hold on to power.

Some thoughts on my relationship to the Green Party and other political issues for 2020 and into the future

I am going to preface this with a couple of observations.

First, about 15 years or so ago, the Dallas Morning News ran a "Where are they now" piece, maybe a series, about local civil rights advocates from the 1960s. If I recall rightly, about a full half of the people interviewed said they had dropped out of electoral politics entirely. That said, about half of that half remained involved with some form of socio-political activism.

I've grown in "member activism" within the GP over the past five years. I've also become more watermelon red on the inside as an ecosocialist, and seen more and more of the anarchist and libertarian green resistance to that. I have little use for anarchism in general, and have made that clear with blog posts here about the Black Bloc, the Occupy movement, etc., for more than a decade. (In summary: Most alleged anarchist groups actually do have leaders — Occupy NYC clearly did, contra myth — and I have no doubt the Black Bloc, various groups all claiming to be "Anonymous" and others do, too. Second, violence-based anarchism, including violence against property as well as persons, often seems to exist for performance art as much as anything. Pass.)

Another problem is the issue that I have long labeled "AccommoGreens" when talking about persons. Howie Hawkins is not as bad as Jill Stein or David Keith Cobb at this, but, he still has some AccommoGreen bones. He had said on many occasions that part of the purpose of previous political runs has been to push Democrats leftward. That's nice. Or, "nice." In New York State, I think he's oversold his degree of success, but that's secondary to the political philosophy issue. I want third-party candidates running because they back their third party's stances, period. If that happens to change other political parties, fine. But, an expressed public desire to change another political party shouldn't be the reason for running.

I can't remember Cynthia McKinney's stance in 2008, but St. Ralph of Nader in 2000 is the only Green I recall who clearly was not an AccommoGreen. That said, for the unaware, he pledged to run a safe states strategy and then broke that promise. Not the only problem he had, either.

Some of these issues tie to the division between the GPUS and GPUSA, which I wrote about a few years ago when I learned more about it. It bears continued reading, especially with my personal thoughts on the "decentralization" issue, of which more below. (That link also has more on some of Nader's issues.)

Then there's the Dario Hunter whining issue. For the record, I think there were small amounts of brushfires behind the smoke Dario saw. I commented on the Twitter PR that Howie selectively got. But cheating? No.

With his independent run (there is no such thing as "Independent Green" in my book) he's burned his bridges with me, as he also has in his alliance with Jesse Ventura backers. I expect him to make a GP run again in 2024. And I expect the Presidential Candidate Support Committee to, at least for public consumption, welcome him back with open arms, even absent any apology.

Next, there's the possible expulsion of the Georgia Green Party. No, it didn't happen at this year's convention, but the Green Party has a national meeting every year. Howie's on record as saying that, while he opposes expulsion, he things the GGP is totally wrong and the Lavender Caucus is all right. He's also gone along with the LC on believing its claims to have science on its side. Even short of expulsion, this stance from the party leader isn't acceptable to me.

I'm not a radical feminist of any sort, though I am a feminist. I'm not a gender-critical feminist, but I am a gender-skeptical one, as there's more than two sides on this issue. There are.

Sex is biology. Gender is culture. Human reproductive development sometimes badly botches sexual development, but sex is still biology and gender is culture. Gender, gender roles and gender ideas are based on biology, yes, but they're ultimately cultural expressions.

Decentralization has long been a GP bugaboo, to pull some links out of the GPUS vs USA issue.

One is that, from a piece on the original drafting of the Ten Key Values, they were never meant to be absolutist; "appropriate centralized regulation in certain matters" is explicitly mentioned. That said, the author of them, Mark Satin, was also a FAN of Nordhaus and Shellenberger, reflecting the still-neoliberal roots of many early Greens. Or radical centrism and New Ageism, both in Satin's history. Both of those two issues still have a fair amount of infusion in the party. That's another reason another wing of the party has resisted an ecosocialism push. In addition, the hyperfocus on "consensus," back to his New Age radical centrism already in the 1970s, had many people talking about a "diddler's cult." PERFECT description of much of what is wrong with today's GP.

Per the Green Pages News account of the split and related issues, the Green movement started in the middle 1980s.  And, the party as party is no further along than it is. Decentralization is not the only reason for that, but it is one reason for sure, IMO.

I mean, boasting that you're a federation of state GPs? That's often interpreted in a "confederation" sense, it seems. Other than that, you see "confederation" once, prominently in American history. And, the Articles of Confederation were a primer on how NOT to have a national government in America. The U.S. Constitution, besides compromises with slavery and other things, and being a conservative second American Revolution, is nonetheless much better, and MUCH much better on the issue of national government as a general concept.

Within this presidential election cycle, other problems with abuse of the idea of decentralization have popped up. The Rhode Island GP refused to send presidential delegates to the national convention, and semi-endorsed Joe Biden for bad measure. Texas GP co-chair Laura Palmer was Yang Ganging then Tulsi-stanning over basic income, then, after the GP nomination, touting indy candidate Mark Charles for the same reason or similar. The Alaska GP went off the board to nominate the loathsome — yes — Jesse Ventura.

Another issue, NOT in the Ten Key Values even (more on that below), consensus-building, is even more of a shibboleth to many long-time as well as shorter-term party members, and even activists and leaders. And, IMO, it's even more of a roadblock to building a better party. And, while the GPUSA did point out the issue of dues-paying as one disagreement with the GPUS, it had zero problems with this. One can applaud making an initial run at consensus, but it's too often pursued too long as a will o'-the  wisp. And, as I noted, made into a shibboleth.

As for those Ten Key Values? I have had some degree of unease with multiple ones of them for some time, and over the last four-five years, that unease has grown.

3. Ecological wisdom? Too often, some version of New Age bullshit. Flat-out pseudoscience in the party's official opposition to GMOs. Encourages antivaxxerism, anti-5Gism, and COVID denialism among many Greens.
5. Decentralization? Beyond its problems within the GP party structure, from someone who's seen plenty of classism in small towns, decentralization of resources, processes and inputs isn't a problem-solver. Sometimes, it's even a problem-booster.
6. Community-based economics? Per what I said above about decentralization, I'm fine with this when appropriate. Too often, it's not, and it can be used as a wedge against socialist needs.

The New Agey stuff has been an issue for years. And, by the relative paucity of openly self-acknowledged secularists and atheists I've run into in Green dialogue, I don't think that — or the degree to which it contributes to Green pseudoscience, will change.

This said, I have left two email lists related to dialogue over the Georgia GP issue. One person had largely hijacked the group at times. This, and other issues, which I won't discuss for obvious group privacy issues, nonetheless would, for non-Greens, reinforce several stereotypes.

I have not yet left the GP Facebook group. But, another outbreak of censorship will probably make that happen. I am going to do my level best to reduce participation there.

So, 2020? I may, or may not, give money to Howie. (He just asked again on Aug. 13.) I may, or may not, have a high degree of enthusiasm for his campaign.

For 2024? I respectfully suggest the Socialist Party USA wait until 2024, rather than acting in late 2023, to choose its presidential nominee. I think that's part of larger work on growing the party and its credibility. I might lend a bit of help. If you want it and support the idea. After all, I joined the GP in part because it was a party of the left. If we can build a better, better organized party of the left in the SPUSA, forward!

For 2024, part 2? I wouldn't support Dario if he gets the GP nomination, without some contrition.

For 2024, bigger picture? While I am an ecosocialist, I am not a Marxist, and I reject Marxism and anything that calls itself Marxist economics unless it TOTALLY drops anything associated with Marxism itself. Why? It's pseudoscience. No, literally.

Hegalian dialectic was, and still is, crappy philosophy. It's non-scientific, like most philosophical systems-buildings are. Made as the basis for a theory of social science, it then becomes pseudoscience on traditional grounds of judging what science is.

Related to that? I'm not an anticapitalist. I am a post-capitalist of some sort, but not an anticapitalist. And I even invented that new logo.

That said, there's a bigger ticket picture here.

Several years ago, late friend Leo Lincourt talked about, not just in politics, but in a lot of the big-ticket items of life in general, at trying to find the sweet spot in a Venn diagram overlap of some sort of left-liberalism (for him) or become more than that (for me) in political point of view, the best of non-scientism scientific thinking including new ideas, and the best of non-Gnu Atheism, non-Skeptics™ scientific and philosophical (especially for me) skepticism. (I first ran into Leo in the old Skeptics Circle blog circle. Those were the days.)

Unfortunately, the Green Party just doesn't seem close enough to that sweet spot. Jill Stein's footsie on vaccines was something I was a quasi-apologist for. Wouldn't do that again, especially now that we have a prez candidate, David Rolde, and others, going beyond her on smartphones to 5G nuttery. (Howie Hawkins, as nominee, seems sane on these issues.) And, the number of Greens horseshoing on COVID conspiracy theories (in part working off an antivaxxer base in many cases) is just ... too much.

Then, there's Howie getting attacked over alleged "Russiagate," but, while more right than wrong on that, him screwing the pooch on China-stanning for Xi Jinping Thought, or at least getting in bed with them, including his late campaign manager, Zeese.

So, to conclude?

I've said many times in 2016 and now that "Democrats don't own my vote."

Well? "Greens don't own my vote, either."

I'll likely still vote for Howie Hawkins. I doubt a Trot will be available for a protest write-in vote. If I give any money, it will be to Hawkins, not the Green Party, though. And, I may not do even that. I've emailed directly to his campaign finance guy, Travis Christal, asking for a copy of the "letter of interest" submitted on behalf of Jesse. And, if they're not going to cough it up, especially with the Alaska GP now nominating Jesse, then why should I care? (Travis has never emailed me back.)

As for 2024? None of the 2020 candidates other than Hawkins is acceptable.