It can be so hard to get people to think beyond the surface. Who can blame them? I mean who has the time?

As just one example, people keep admonishing me about 'wasting' my vote by voting for Jill Stein. She can't possibly win, right?

If you confuse cultural clichés for your own thoughts, are you really thinking? How much of the bullshit we are constantly fed should we believe uncritically? It pays to question things in the bullshit festival our culture has become. With propaganda raised to an art form and a corporate mass media that has wormed its way into our shared consciousness, you can't go wrong questioning things and questioning them deeply. In our profoundly sick society, liars are well paid and truth tellers shunned, if not killed or hunted to the ends of the earth. This whole society is full of shit. The conventional wisdom is almost always wrong...and it gets shoveled at us 24/7. It's easy to see how so many people end up swallowing it.

We must stomp out terrorism (as opposed to co-opting it and ceasing to create the conditions for it)

We must make war on the world (as opposed to leading it to peace)

We HAVE to vote for Hillary (as opposed to doing something useful and morally defensible)

No vote is ever wasted – not if it's counted. And certainly not if it's honestly counted. Because then it will be recorded and can be referred back to. It is a matter of the historical record and will say something to future generations (assuming there will be future generations who care about history). The point is, it says something.

I know that's not as sexy as having a person who claims to be on your side in the seat of power, having 'your team' in control, but dissent matters too. Especially when people are being slaughtered all over the world, including in the streets and jails of America because of OUR status quo.

Elections in a democracy are not equivalent to sporting events, not a game, not a horse race. You don't have to be on the winning team for your vote to count. Not in a real democracy anyway. If you vote, it counts. Or should.

If enough people had been allowed to vote for Bernie unobstructed and if the votes had been honestly counted, he'd have whupped all comers and been elected president. Anyone who doubts that is just wrong. They may or may not be fools or liars, but they are definitely wrong.

But I digress.

Many of my fellow Berners are joining me in voting for Jill Stein, not necessarily because we think she can win, but because we mean to cast a vote that doesn't make us hate ourselves, a vote that sits well with the values and integrity of the Sanders movement at its best. And because, win or lose, our votes will boost the viability of the Green Party, hopefully bringing it from the fringes of American political life into being a real contender, allowing us to finally break out of this two-party prison.

It's an error to think of a president as the government. Presidents are only a small part of the government. They are powerful but their power is limited. What's important about presidents is whose interests they truly represent, who they take their orders from (and it ain't us, we are merely pandered to, manipulated and lied to).

In the USA, both teams report to the same oligarchs. We just tried to change that. We failed. Or more accurately, we let them cheat us out of it.

Our shitty electoral process has degenerated in the present round to a debauched circus that would shame the WWE. Not only is it kabuki, but it's the worst kabuki ever. A glorious reality-tv spectacle staged for the rubes. Trump's the villain of course, but it's all bullshit.

At this point, helping establish a desperately needed third party is more important than which asshole gets to screw America and the world for the next four years.

Peace and love, y'all.