Chafee and Webb announced.

[zazen]

89. so "perhaps" up to one million Iraqi souls would not have died? I'd say that matters

I agree with you that building local resilience and alternative economies is more vital than ever on wrong side of EROEI and that we effectively have one mainstream global capitalist oligarchy with multiple factions clamoring for ground on all sides outside of that. And that the presidential election functions conveniently as a circus show distraction for the banal talk show set. You're absolutely right.

That said, I hope we can also be sensitive to the people and species whose lives, not to mention quality of life, have most certainly been lost as a result of the 2000 SCOTUS theft of the election from Al Gore. Obama and Clinton are Wall Street neoliberals through and through but they support birth control, free access to abortion, expanded healthcare, some environmental protection and not rushing headlong into senseless wars (though they're ruthless when they have to be), so on behalf of those folks and the Earth I'd say it does matter a bit.

I think those of us so sickened by the interrelated (but not entirely hegemonic) global kleptocratic regimes need to constantly remind people still caught up in electoral salvation that we STILL HONOR the electoral process, but only as ONE force among many through which shift power.

We need to keep working on developing a more effective terminology and strategy to shift some of the focus/energy from "the horse race." Let's commit to that while honoring the quality of life and very lives sacrificed by a more extremist POTUS.