SocraticGadfly: So, it's Butch Ware as Jill Stein's Veep? Update: It was Ayoub first, then Noura Erekat

August 17, 2024

So, it's Butch Ware as Jill Stein's Veep? Update: It was Ayoub first, then Noura Erekat

That was the news yesterday, that she had picked Butch Ware, professor at Cal-Santa Barbara, over any of the two Arab-American names she floated two weeks ago via Al Jazeera as three potential Veep picks. The two Arab-Americans were also both from Michigan, the state with the largest Arab-American population and where the "uncommitted" movement in Democratic presidential primaries started.

Per that second link, a previous blog post of mine? Was she afraid of actually costing Kamala is a Zionist Cop the state of Michigan, and in a close presidential race, thus possibly tipping it to Donald Trump? Given that her 2016 recount, based on fake news, started in Michigan, and that Stein is in many ways an AccommoGreen, the Green equivalent of a ConservaDem, none of this would surprise me. Luqman, the third name floated, is from DC and so just wouldn't have been a broader needle-mover. Also, as of 2020, she was affiliated with Sputnik Radio. Given attacks on Stein as a "Russian agent," by #BlueAnon engaging in the worst of #Russiagate's wrongness, that would not have flown. But, was Stein thinking that way? If so, why was Luqman on the list in the first place?

And, why am I assuming Stein actually plays 11-dimensional chess, or thinks that deeply?

==

Big set of updates to the original post, via Green Party candidate Jason Call and people he had retweeted, with a huge amount of backstory to this.

First, Stein had yet other people in mind besides that list from Al Jazeera, apparently. Or she was forced to, rather, after her first choice, from that list, spit the bit. More on that below.

One of them, her first fallback, was Noura Erekat, who, thank doorknob, per this tweet

Pulled out.

The "terms of campaign"? This:

As I noted in quoting

And in responding to someone else who quoted:

The GP doesn't need that shit. Stein should have seen that Erekat's history, including being of legal counsel to a House committee, might have been .... iffy.

Serious, that SCREAMS "duopoly" to me. Did nobody vet her?

Nor does it need the shit of Nathan J. Robinson, socialist pretendian, stanning for the left hand of the duopoly

And, stan he does.:

He'd semi-headfaked earlier this summer, but, now we're seeing the mask back off. 

As I told him?

What else is there to say? Well, other than Robinson wants the Green Party, en masse, to be DSA Roseys.

Per that semi-headfake mentioned above, I had had hopes that he might actually be looking beyond the duopoly this year, mainly over Gaza, but also for other reasons.

Beyond the headfake, the naivete or whatever it is that he's exemplifying?

Nathan, have you been gaslighting the outside world, yourself, or both, about how much you understand about political machinations?

Back to the Erekat pick.

To pick up from near the top of this post? Elsewhere, Jason Call notes that the original call was Abed Ayoub, the top candidate in the Al Jazeera leak (yes, a deliberate leak) but he backed off due to family illness.

Erm, wasn't this known in advance? The family illness? Surely, unless his wife had a near-fatal heart attack less than 24 hours before Stein officially tapped him, this didn't come out of nowhere. In this Aug. 12 story, in which Ayoub is grateful to be under consideration, there's no talk of health issues with himself or family. Per Facebook, his one grandmother died Aug. 15. It's true, that could have been sudden, but given her apparent age and that most her siblings were already dead, it's more likely not that sudden.

And, if he did spit the bit, why not Amer Zahr or Luqman, off that original list of names?

(My original post on this didn't get updated after that Al Jazeera piece, as I was operating off IPR. Still.)

To go back to Luqman? I think Putin would want somebody more organized than Stein as a Russian asset.

And, to offer a new update?

I tweeted this post Saturday night to someone named TurboKitty, who had been retweeted by dyed-in-the-wool Green David Bruce Collins, calling the process a clusterfuck. Turns out said person is co-chair of the Nevada Green Party steering committee.

I'll be here, and was on Twitter, charitable to their first response to me, and assume they were honestly thinking I was talking about the "big reveal," not the process behind it. I told them politely but firmly, no, I meant this process.

I wasn't charitable to their second response:

With my reply:

And, I'll further fight fire with fire as desired. 

I "get" the tribalism behind the response. I don't accept it.

And, I'm going to keep taking receipts. One Pourz11, who's actually a follower of me, but it's not mutual, jumped in. Their second comment was:

To which I said:

Then added that, per the end of that comment, no one that mattered to me cared about their present.

And, setting aside her investments hypocrisy, I haven't even talked about things like her antivaxxer footsies, her 5G nuttery and more. That said, I know shit like 5G conspiracy theories and antivaxxerism (even if it was footsies, not full-blown with her) appeals to a fair chunk of Greens, as I said after in the last run-up to the 2020 race at that link. Whether it's a majority or not, I don't know. OTOH, COVID scared enough Greens that Stein doubled down on pandering there, saying she supported the vaccine but opposed vaccine mandates. Or, to put them in the scare quotes they need? "Vaccine mandates." Gee, a Rethuglican could say that. Like Gov. Strangeabbott. On the third hand, I called Stein Just.Another.Politician.™ years ago, and said Greens were Just.Another.Political.Party™. I stand by that. Sadly, and one thing that has me not locked in on Claudia de la Cruz is her Stein-like stance on vaccines.

(Some of this is notes for when I announce my "slate" in a month or so.) Per that last link above, if Joseph Kishore, the candidate of the Trots of the Socialist Equality Party, is available by write-in, that's an option.

More on the Erekat pick and her demands.

First, Noura, they weren't going to be met. If you're that dumb to think that they were, beyond the AccommoGreen in extremis, I question your political judgement as much as Nathan J. Robinson's. You must have hung out with Dem Congresscritters too much. (I also question your political alignment as much as Robinson's.)

More on that, from my perspective, snarkily?

Actually, considering I'd like to finish pushing the Green Party off the cliff, in some ways, it's too bad in some ways that Stein didn't agree to Erekat's demands.

==

Anyway, to summarize:

1. Stein's first choice for Veep spit the bit in a process that invites questions, to put it politely, is head scratching, to put it a bit more skeptically, or is questionable, to put it more skeptically yet.

2. Her theoretical second and third choices, from her original list of names, were apparently simply ignored.

3. Her fourth choice was poorly vetted, if at all. And, it's not like there wasn't time. She's mentioned in that Aug. 12 story linked above, with Zahr endorsing her. Was the Al Jazeera piece not just a deliberate leak, but a smokescreen to cover Stein's chasing of Erekat? If not, why did she pivot to Erekat? Was it knowing her duopoly ties and seeing this as a "get"?

4. That, of course, fell through and it was on to No. 5 or beyond.

At this point, Stein, if not the national Green Party as a whole, is telling Will Rogers "hold my beer" over his bon mot about Democrats and disorganization. This looks like George McGovern's Veep clusterfuck in 1972.

And, summary side notes?

1. I'm going to do something further about Robinson. Don't think you've gotten off the hook yet.

2. What's this say for the Green Party 2028? Even more than in 2020, most candidates, before Stein entered, couldn't cross the bar for party qualifications to officially run. And, after Cornel West spit the bit, nobody else of note jumped in besides Stein. Her running in 2028 would finish killing off the party. So, where's a Margaret Flowers or someone like that? A Matthew Hoh?

Nutters, flakes, vanity candidates and grifters (and there's definitely Venn diagram overlap) won't cut it.

3. Tagging Mark Lause on Facebook, whom I thought was done with the Green Party on personal support as well as activism, I find out I'm wrong there. I can't say more because I don't post as "public."

4. I also still think a la 2016, that Stein deliberately spit the bit on choosing a Veep nominee from Michigan, and an Arab-American rather than an African American, because of lesser evilism.

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at Saturday, August 17, 2024 Posted by Gadfly

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