Psychological proof Dear Leader was seen as a head fake on neoliberalism

Regular readers here know who I mean by Dear Leader.

The psychological proof?

At Psy Post, new research indicates a sharp split within Black men on their mental health after Obama's 2012 re-election. And that split was along class and income guidelines.

The researchers found that college-educated Black men saw a significant improvement in their mental health, with nearly three fewer poor mental health days reported per month after the election. In contrast, Black men without a college education reported experiencing one additional poor mental health day per month.

That sounds fairly notable.

Why? Various possibilities.

And, per the researcher, yes, this does call for further thought.

The researchers propose several reasons for this divergence. One possibility is that less-educated Black men felt Obama had not lived up to the promises he made during his campaign. These men may have expected Obama to tackle issues like job creation, healthcare access, and systemic inequality more effectively. As these promises went unfulfilled in their eyes, their mental health may have worsened due to feelings of disappointment or relative deprivation—a sense that they were being left behind compared to other groups, including more affluent or educated Black men

Looking at the current election, and what the average Trump Trainer thinks vs the reality of Project 2025? Should Trump get back in office, I would expect a similar split among White men.

Political news roundup — Green-Dem fight in Wisconsin, Bernie and AOC in Tex-ass

The Green Party's presence in Wisconsin is making Democrats nervous. Specifically, in the last decade, Madison has elected 10 Greens to local office, the piece notes. Stand by for Cort Greene to try to comment on this post. That said, Politico's piece doesn't report on why the Republicans don't worry the same way about Libertarians, even though in decades past through now, they've lost multiple US Senate seats in Georgia because of Libertarian candidates, for example. It does note that Kamala is a Zionist Cop Harris appears to be getting more pro-Palestinian supporters than Genocide Joe was.

Meanwhile, Alexia Sabor, chair of Dane County Dems, says:

“If you want power in a third party, start teaching the Green Party or whoever to run for school board and village board, and stop running for president and governor.”

Ignoring the info in the paragraph above.

Or, rather, lying about it.

And, the Wisconsin GP has promised Sabor that there will be more of that, and challenges for things like state rep, in 2026.

==

Why DID AOC and Bernie Sanders come to Tex-ass recently? Did they drink some of the Gilberto Hinojosa Kool-Aid? As part of the piece, Dan Solomon correctly notes that, no, there's not some big pool of non-voting Texans just waiting to flip the D switch. Instead, there's just a big pool of generally non-voting Texans.

Also of note: ConservaDem Colin Allred avoided both like the plague.

Speaking of and related? Like Kuff, I didn't know Adam Kinzinger had moved to Tex-ass. Unlike Kuff, I'm far more skeptical of his Republicans for Allred push. And, beyond the piece, will Kinzinger get normalized enough to be the Dems' 2026 gubernatorial nominee?

==

Kamala is a Zionist Cop's campaign staff, anonymously, admits "just folks" Tim Walz has a "misspeaking" problem. It's not yet as bad as Dementia Joe's lies, but stay tuned! And shock me.

=

Remember when Kamala was a Pre-Zionist Cop and Friend of Banksters? Like Steve Mnuchin? THAT, it's clear, hasn't changed.

=

The Smartmatic vs Fox lawsuit is turning ugly.

Oct. 7, 2023, one year later

Since the lamestream media won't give you the facts? This roundup post is a callout post as well.

Let's start with NPR. No, Genocide Joe and Kamala is a Zionist Cop did NOT have tributes to all the victims. They had no tribute to Palestinian victims before or after Oct. 7. Neither did Dementia Don, of course.

The WSJ, before you hit the paywall, is honest enough to talk about divisions in Israel strong enough there were dueling ceremonies. US LSM won't discuss that, either.

At the Beeb, British mainstream media, they didn't talk about dueling memorials in Israel. They did cite the fatuousness of Genocide Joe and British Prime Minister Der Starmer:

Outside of Israel, President Biden joined other world leaders in condemning what he called the "unspeakable brutality" of the Hamas attacks a year ago.

He also expressed horror at the subsequent war, saying "far too many civilians had suffered, far too much".

Mourners also gathered at vigils around the world including in Australia, South Africa, Germany and the United States.

In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons he supported Israel's right to defend itself. But Britain's prime minister insisted there was no military solution to the current crisis and appealed for all sides to "step back".

Without calling it fatuousness. Neither Genocide Joe nor Der Starmer will do anything beyond "appeals," the international political equivalent of #ThoughtsAndPrayers, the old Shitter hashtag, or #TotsAndPears as parodied by many of us secularists.

Indeed, as Axios notes (and this is not at all new) Biden and Harris have their thumbs on the scales. Dementia Don would do just the same.

The ZioNazi government of Bibi Netanyahu, meanwhile, is ignoring alleged divisions, and using the world shifting focus to Lebanon, to try to continue to grind Gaza to dust.

And, friends on Facebook who have voted outside the duopoly in the past still want me to vote for lesser evilism.

Meanwhile, Counterpunch talks about Oct. 7 leaning on lesser evilism Noam Chomsky with a chaser of sellout Ralph Nader. 

Oh, for you BlueAnon and MAGAts alike? Start by reading Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," or another of his books. Then go to Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People." Before you even think about "going there," both are Jews inside Israel.

The Freedom Socialist Party? Who?

Never heard of them before. And, that's after doing a fair amount of research this year. So, their critique / attack on the Socialist Equality Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation is sketchy. Their attack in that piece on the Socialist Workers Party is spot on, as is the ones on Jill Stein and Cornell West. Here's their Wiki; they've run a presidential nominee of their own once since splitting from the SWP back in the 1960s.

That said, looking at the subsections in their "about," they appear to be strongly identitarian politics, above all on feminism, which the SEP has halfway-correctly criticized in the PSL. And, more specifically, they're Trots. See their FAQ for more.

My "vote the Commie" for the PSL is as much a protest vote against protest votes as anything else, I'll admit. I'm "post-capitalist," not "anti-capitalist," and have long noted, as have others, that Marx may have been right on description of his era, but wrong on prescription. I have gone further in noting that Hegelian dialectic is crappy philosophy and literally creates pseudoscience when used as the backbone for any theory or thesis within any social science, whether it's the original dialectical idealism or the Marxist dialectical materialism. (That applies in spades with the natural sciences, of course.)

I should add that, in post-Reagan Merikkka, I'm suspicious of groups with "freedom" in their names; these people could be a CIA front group.

Counterpunch? You've lost me with Chomsky AND with Nader

Counterpunch, on US elections issues, has been "losing" me for months now. Start with the lack of profiling of third-party candidates. Yeah, that's not their metier, but, at the same time, more than once in the past couple of months, they've run stuff that HAS at least verged halfway close to GOTV writing for the left hand of the duopoly.

And, now, today, on the one year anniversary of the start of the Third Gazan War or whatever name we should give the current round of mindless Israeli ethnic cleansing, after years of goading both Gazan and West Bank Palestinians?

Counterpunch Radio uses a Noam Chomsky "infographic" type quote as art for blurbing its podcast. Barf me.

First, long before he was brain-dead, Chomsky tried to "nudge" Green (and SPUSA) presidential nominee out of the race in 2020. He wasn't alone. Barbara Ehrenreich, Norman Solomon and others who know better were his fellow travelers.

That said, that's nothing new. That same year, Chomsky, who's long been a duopoly sheepdogger, was one of the signers of that odious Harper's letter. (So was Cornel West, which is why I didn't really believe his schtick a full year ago, even before he decided to try copulating with Nick Brana.)

And, while Margaret Kimberly went too far (shock me) in claiming Chomsky is fully opposed to BDS? He's nowhere near being in support of it; receipts are here. (Neither is Norman Finkelstein, who flat-out rejects it, as well as still cluelessly clinging to the two-state solution.)

Reminder: Last week, the UN General Assembly, in essence, officially called for UN member states to engage in BDS against Israel.

Beyond all of the above? Chomsky has been "filtered" through his second wife for years.

While I'm here? This, too. And, this goes straight to Jeff St. Clair, an unreconstructed Naderite, as well as Cockburn fils. Running Ralph Nader calling out Dems over Israel and Gaza. Nader officially endorsed Genocide Joe two weeks before Oct. 7 and has never unendorsed him or succesor Kamala is a Zionist Cop. On St. Clair, I had somewhat moderated my stance on his stance on Nader and the Green Party at one time, but I've hardened it again, and more so after Oct. 7. In my opinion, the Green Party internal reforms for 2004 weren't perfect, but they weren't horrible. AND, contra Nader and St. Clair, they weren't entirely officially targeted at him. Also IMO, he, like Cornel West, wanted the nomination on a platter. Yeah, there's a lot of AccommoGreens, but still?

Also, per my "endorsed" link? There's LOTS of stuff that St. Clair won't tell you. Like Nader being a shitter on Terri Schiavo. Like him being a crappy boss per both Kurt Eichenwald and Tim Shorrock, among others. Both have receipts. Nader has been anti-labor in other ways. Consumer advocates in general, like environmentalists, have a history there.

Anyway, this isn't Counterpunch Radio referencing Chomsky. This is Counterpunch continuing to platform him.

Update, Oct. 25: It gets worse. This Counterpunch piece all but goes in the BlueAnon tank, talking about Republican election suppression while ignoring Democratic third-party ballot access election suppression. I've long, long said that Counterpunch, even more than other theoretically leftist political commentary magazines, is sorely lacking in establishing some sort of overall editorial direction and oversight in areas like this. Of course, managing editor Josh Frank himself has had a piece or two this year that came close to semi-officially stanning for the lesser evilism half of the duopoly.

Off the Kuff practicing election disinformation

That's what we have at a post last Thursday.

I quote:

They also didn’t report on the Presidential result in the story. That was 49-44 for Trump over Kamala Harris, with 1% for Jill Stein and 0 for independent Cornel West. Given that West is a write-in, and therefore won’t be on the ballot, and there is a Libertarian who will be on the ballot but wasn’t included, this is another result for a non-existent race.

And my response:

And, it's flat out untrue to say that because Cornel West is a write-in, he won't be on the ballot. To put it another way, that's election disinformation. I don't mean that metaphorically; I mean that literally. This is election misinformation at a minimum, disinformation at a maximum.

And, Kuff's been around enough, and in Democrat politics enough, I say "dis" not just "mis."

Beyond that, Kuff knows from a recent Texas Progressives roundup, that I'm voting for Claudia de la Cruz, a write-in, for president. (I also said in comments that I'm also doing one of the write-ins for Senate.)

And, again, this is how people like me take voting more seriously than the duopoly stanners.

Update, Oct. 24: Indeed, and I presume this comes from the state level, because the piece of paper had the Texas Secretary of State's shield on it? At my polling place, a printout from the SoS office lists all the write-in candidates by name.

And? I just tweeted this post, with update, and tagged the Texas Secretary of State's office.