Why I am “If Hill With Jill.”

I can not in good conscience accept or reward corruption -especially gross corruption- and those involved in it. Given the circumstances of this Bernie Sanders vs Hillary Clinton existential battle for the soul of the Democratic Party and subsequently this country and the world’s future, I will be opting out of voting for Hillary if she is the nominee. I repeat -I DO NOT reward corruption!!!

If Bernie Sanders himself tells me to vote in favor of Hillary only to prevent Donald Trump, I am sorry but I can not given the horrendous past actions of Hillary Clinton as well as the unethical coordinated effort by her campaign, the DNC, and mainstream media in its attempts to derail the Bernie campaign and its momentum. If the nominee is not Bernie Sanders then I will personally be voting for Jill Stein.

I could never back either Trump or Clinton due to their platforms being largely opposite my own principles as well as their personal and professional histories riddled with past misconduct and horrible decisions. I refuse to allow a party, the media, and others to dissuade me from supporting the candidate that best represents my personal views and -quite honestly- what I see as the best move forward for not only our citizens but the entire world. This election, it’s coverage, and everything surrounding it has been beyond unfair, overwhelmingly manipulated, and entirely corrupted while skewed towards the benefit of one candidate and it is preposterous to act as though Hillary deserves the nomination with everything that has transpired.

I have zero faith in Hillary morphing towards Progressive politics, she has been dragged kicking and screaming to the point she is at now and the media, the DNC, and her campaign have decided to instead use corrupt tactics to try to win instead of adapting and tailoring their platform to attract the Progressives in the first place. Her husband was the Chair for the Democratic Leadership Council which was a faction of right-leaning Democratic politicians who were supposed to push Democrats towards more conservative viewpoints. Bill’s and Hillary’s entire history shows the propensity for continuing to push the Democrats to the right.

I’m not blind -I can see her now slowing her adaptations towards Bernie’s platform and this is so she hopes that those Republicans who are not in favor of Trump will switch and vote for her. She is not worried about the Progressive voter base -she thinks she has them in the bag come the general election. And she certainly doesn’t give a damn about the Independent voters that now make up about 45% of the people in the U.S. -the very same people Bernie Sanders has inspired to come out this election cycle despite the historic level of voting irregularities and disenfranchisement that has occurred in many of these state races.

Hillary is going to drag the Democratic Party to the right and the moderate Republicans who can’t stand Trump are going to run to the Democratic Party that has moved right. This will leave the extremist Tea Partiers and Libertarians voting for Trump and the Progressives split voting Hillary, Bernie, Third Party, or not at all. The Independent voter turnout will decrease for supporting Hillary in the general and may even bode more favorably for Trump since he is viewed as the more anti-establishment candidate compared to Hillary and this is an anti-establishment election cycle.

And if you want more proof of how far right Hillary is look at her past antics and how even the Koch brothers and numerous other traditionally conservative candidates have come out to claim she is better than Trump. That is all the proof I need that she is the face of the new openly neoliberal/neoconservative Democratic Party that is purging the Progressives who won’t march to their tune while she has managed to alienate new Independent sympathizers to the Democratic Party membership and thus build up the Democratic Party. No, Hillary is not the answer in the least and I’d rather vote my conscience and take my chances with Trump than vote for either evil being offered by the wealthy elites.

I’m also not opposed to real open revolution either which is what part of the problem I see in this country is, a lack of participation in direct action and civil disobedience, just a bunch of citizens these days who claim they are Americans and yet have an aversion to confrontation on a revolutionary level when that is one of the most “American” things to do. This country didn’t get created by saying, “Oh, let’s just listen to the British, they aren’t so bad.” But that is precisely the way I feel people are acting when they want to vote for someone so corrupt and vote out of fear of what is essentially an unknown contender who won’t even be able to function to the extent of Hillary while in office -meaning many of Trump’s policies he has proposed simply would never get past Congress the same way President Obama’s didn’t.

Many people are continuing to allude to voting for someone I and many others do not have the faintest amount of trust in. Do people need me to walk them down memory lane with Hillary who people wish to claim is a profound difference from Trump? The same Hillary who has also made no promises to overturn Citizens United, she has made no promises about reinstating Glass Steagall and busting up too big to fail banks, and with her background you simply can’t believe a damn thing she says.

The country and this government are broken already and it starts with people capitulating and voting for the ‘lesser evil.’ Those who are sitting here telling me they KNOW what Trump will and won’t do -that is awfully funny since he NEVER held office -so where the hell are they getting their information? Hillary was a ‘Goldwater Girl’ meaning against the Civil Rights Act, Hillary got caught up in the Watergate Nixon Scandal while she was part of his White House staff, Hillary vacations and looks up to Henry Kissinger who is viewed as a war criminal in a variety of nations, she called a KKK Grand Dragon the “heart and soul of America”, Hillary laughed with glee when Qaddafi was killed and she destabilized an entire region leaving death and despair in the power vacuum left by Qaddafi’s demise , she pushed for the TPP/TTIP over 40 times despite the loss of jobs we have seen that stemmed from NAFTA and CAFTA, she pushed for fracking in Europe and backed it here at home, she hired Monsanto lobbyists to her campaign, she hired a Walmart Board member to her campaign, her son-in-law was an Eagle Vale hedge fund manager which worked directly with Goldman Sachs, she takes money from the oil industry such as Chevron, she was in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, she was in favor of the 94' Crime Bill and even went so far as calling black youth ‘super predators’ and said they ‘needed to be brought to heel’, she took money from the private prison industry for her campaign, she voted for the Iraq war, she tried to use the Sandy Hook massacre and Bernie’s refusal to hold gun manufacturers accountable for an individual committing a mass shooting and yet she was taking money from the very manufacturer that made the gun used in the Sandy Hook massacre, she literally went after every woman who said they had a sexual encounter with her husband with litigation, she doesn’t pay her interns despite saying she believes in pay equity and there is no pay equity with those who are on her staff either, her refusal to divulge her transcripts from speeches to big banking and Wall St., the usage of sound dampening technology to prevent journalists from hearing a speech she gave to wealthy donors, she was on the Walmart Board of Directors when they were union busting, she deposed the democratically elected Honduran president and sent their government and nation into turmoil by backing a coup, the Clinton Foundation took $10 million for the Haiti Earthquake of 2010 and only built 6 houses in Haiti with that $10 million, the Clinton Foundation took donations from foreign nations that coincide with the State Department she was heading approving foreign aid and weapons to those very same nations, her husband has engaged in electioneering in Massachusetts and Chicago for her campaign this year — depressing voter turnout and benefitting his wife, voting irregularities have occurred in several states that only seem to benefit her and her campaign, the outright lie the mainstream media is pushing that she has clinched the nomination by counting super delegates who don’t vote until July 25th… And I haven’t even touched the e-mail server situation that she is under an FBI investigation for currently or the Benghazi witch-hunt. Yeah, she looks really able to be pushed to the left now doesn’t she (sarcasm).

Does Donald Trump have this amount of baggage? No he definitely does not, he has lots of gaffes and soundbites of hate-speech but he does not have a documented history with all that gross misconduct. How about people stop acting like either Trump or Clinton are even an option?

Many people are unwilling to stand by their principles and they merely allow themselves to be manipulated out of fear to vote for what they perceive to be the lesser evil and in this case there is very little demonstrating that she is a lesser evil. Hillary polls worse than Trump in numerous polls, an estimated 25–30% of Bernie Sanders supporters (including myself) will not vote for Hillary no matter what, she has one of the worst favor-ability; trustworthiness; and likability ratings of any candidate, Trump is not going to use ‘padded hands’ when discussing Hillary’s baggage either like Bernie has tried to do despite her essentially lying and cherry-picking many of her arguments against Bernie, her nomination will depress voter enthusiasm and turnout as well which subsequently gives Trump an earnest shot at the White House regardless of the “Bernie or Bust” movement or the people voting Third Party -which will happen regardless, to be as frank with you as I can. Hillary doesn’t have as clear of a win against Trump as Bernie does and Bernie didn’t have to cheat to get where he is today like Hillary clearly has.

Many people want myself and others to vote for corrupt establishment politicians beholden to oligarchs and fascists while continuing to allow this nation to devolve further into the plutocracy it is currently. Those arguments do not show any type of integrity or moral principle with regards to their support -it shows fear and fear of the unknown. I bow down to no one and I certainly don’t allow myself to be pushed around by fear and corruption such as many of my countrymen and women are outright suggesting I and others do

The world will burn under either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. I am willing to bet many who will read this are unaware of precisely where we are with regards to global climate change since I find 90% of Americans are unaware. The planet has no time for Hillary and her inability to address the environmental issues unfolding today.

A vast consensus of scientists find that we only have maybe a 15 year window to prevent irreversible climate change and human extinction which will occur in the next 100–200 years if we do not address it in this 15 year window. And that 15 year window is a conservative estimate to begin with so it is much more likely less than that. We have under 15 years to stop the global temperature from increasing by (I believe what is currently calculated) 1.5 degrees centigrade on average globally. At the rate we are going we are going to cross this threshold in 15 years or less and once we do we no longer are going to be able to reverse the warming effects that are occurring. We will continue the trend of increasing temperatures to the point of the Earth becoming uninhabitable. With the detriment of global warming/climate change comes the continued melting of polar ice caps, permafrost melting and releasing methane gas into the atmosphere which causes 84% more warming effects than carbon dioxide, the warming of the ocean and inability of phytoplankton to survive which is a food producer in the food chain of the ocean thereby driving aquatic extinction in the ocean as well as destroying the ability of the phytoplankton to create oxygen, the warming of the oceans will further aid in the acidification of the oceans, migrations of people towards areas with more natural resources and water reserves will create more global conflict, rising temperatures will quite literally lead to the extinction of pollinators such as bees and therefore 91% of our plant based diet will be destroyed since there will no longer be pollination occurring, and there are certainly much more adverse conditions to come.

So if we vote for Hillary there is a high probability she will continue to ignore the environmental disasters of today and there is a decent shot of her possibly serving two terms as President especially if a formidable opponent doesn’t run against her which means we lose 8 years of being able to fix the climate change concerns. If we got Trump it would be 4 years and he would be voted out -guaranteed- and then a strong possibility for possibly Elizabeth Warren to run for President, which I could get behind her without feeling I’m morally compromising myself or aiding in leading the planet towards the end of mankind. Now if we got Hillary for 4 or 8 years there is a strong chance especially given the traditional political cycles that have played out in this country that we will get a Republican in the White House (even though Hillary basically is one -a DINO really) after her. That means 8 to 12 years at least of not addressing climate change to the degree it needs to be -it is a global emergency and our nation ignores it in the government and the media because it doesn’t suit the fossil fuel industry.

I say, “No, I will never vote for Hillary and I will never vote for Trump.” I will vote for the future of my children and their children after them. If I don’t vote this way I only see extinction of humanity in the next 100–200 years and I am unwilling to gamble with that, at least voting Green gives the Green Party a shot to broach the 5% national backing of citizens that will then allow government backing of the Green Party in the next election and give the Greens legitimacy on the national level and an ability to more readily compete against the two party duopoly that currently exists.

For the record I’m not a Democrat either other than paying dues to the party -I suppose I am what I’d call a “good” DINO- so I can have my voice heard. I self-identify as a Green Party member and that of a Green who was willing to vote for Bernie in the general despite many of my friends in the (Green) party and many of my comrades in other Third Parties and organizations associated with them not being willing to vote for him -I at least saw the potential in Bernie. I see no potential in Hillary and I definitely can’t vote for an overt bigot given my moral compass.

Now given my analysis and how dire I see this election cycle, why again would I vote for incremental reforms when as I’ve illustrated we have run out of time to play incrementalism games? Do you have children? Because I want a planet that can sustain life and future generations and don’t want to leave my children in more dire straits than my generation was left by prior ones. The conventional ‘lesser evilism’ viewpoint does not address my climate change concerns it merely seems to worry about socially liberal policies that honestly will not matter if our planet can’t continue to sustain life and therefore society. What are civil rights and liberties if there is no society?

We won’t be having any debates on politics soon enough if we let Hillary win this election and as I’ve said I can’t push myself to vote for Trump despite him offering the greatest chance for being pushed out of the Presidency the quickest especially when there is an opportunity to push the Green Party beyond the 5% voter backing nationally that is necessary for them to gain government funding for their campaigns and actually compete with the Democratic and Republican Parties. I think as eloquently as people wish to debate my views their arguments often lack the ability to critically examine ‘everything’ and have made the folly so many other Americans have made by underestimating just how close we are to the precipice of human extinction and believing we have time for incremental change -we don’t.