Lawrence Beck
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

Thank you for your thoughtful post, Yvonne.

I commented on Caitlin’s second McCain screed with the following: “McCain would never have served in the Senate had it not been for the Arizona voters. One doesn’t just decide to become a Senator and ascend to the throne. One is voted in. Arizona voters enabled McCain and continue to enable him every time his term expires.

Your anger is just a little misplaced here… don’t you think?”

Caitlin responded to my comment with: “I’ve never proposed building consensus with the neoconservative alt-center. They’re too far gone. Libertarians, paleocons, anarchists, and some factions of Trump’s base can be collaborated with in some ways, but neoconservatism is the very ideology I’m advocating collaborating against.

Note that she avoided responding to my comment on the point that McCain is a Senator because his constituency voted him in.

While I’ve complimented Caitlin in the past for her analysis, while embracing the noble idea of working towards building consensus with those who have different political views, I found this expression of hatred and ill will towards McCain to be the antithesis of her “let’s build consensus” position. It makes me wonder if consensus building is truly her position or if she just decided to piggyback on the usefulness of Nader’s 2014 book about consensus building?

Clinton is as much of a neocon as many Republicans. Her voting record on every Middle East incursion and her joyous response to Khadaffi’s death: “We came. We saw. He Died” (followed by her gleeful laughter) clearly illustrates a disturbed individual.

So if we follow Caitlin’s comment: “neoconservatism is the very ideology I’m advocating collaborating against”… how much consent can one build if one eliminates the majority voters who chose Hillary as their candidate of choice? That’s at least three million over 50%, and significantly more if one considers Greg Palast’s reports on the disinfranchised Democratic voters who’s Clinton votes were discarded!

One doesn’t build consensus with hate speech.

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