Tomorrow is Super Tuesday where several American states, including my own, California, vote. I voted for Marianne Williamson for president because I want to send President Biden and the Democratic party a message: wake up and find a way to win in November. Also, if I don’t vote for Marianne Williamson, who will? She’s a bestselling spiritual author whose books I buy and read and agree with. She’s also a smart, articulate, VERY well-informed advocate for everything I (and most Americans want): (affordable) Medicare for all, ending our dependence on fossil fuel to reverse climate change, truly affordable housing, truly liveable wage, universal childcare, higher education for all, as well as a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.
In the 2020 election, so many voters picked Bernie Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) (who had similar platforms to Marianne Williamson) for President that Joe Biden was forced to adopt much of this platform as his and focus much more on delivering what voters really want and need. As I have written before, I was far from enthusiastic about Biden as the nominee last time, but have been surprised at how effective he has been as an executive (while not as a communicator–the opposite of Obama). By all accounts, he has appointed much better people in his administration than Barak Obama or Bill Clinton and has navigated Congress deftly.
Biden’s obsolete view of the United State’s relationship with Israel and the continuing oil drilling leases–MAJOR exceptions to his otherwise encouraging recording–coupled with the somewhat bafflingly negative view that many likely Democratic voters have of the president’s age as well as his handling of the economy, lead me to believe the Democratic Party must be sent a strong political message in super Tuesday. That way, if the candidate is going to be Biden, he can make a course correction, and if it’s not going to be Biden, the delegates can pick a winning candidate who works for a world that works for everyone. I rather doubt they’ll pick Williamson, but what else is possible?
Note: if I posted more often on current events, I’d write a separate piece on this, but I doubt I could say it better than Nicholas Kristof did. I commend this piece from yesterday’s (March 3, 2024) New York Times: Israel, Gaza and Double Standards, Including Our Own, pointing out that while there are multiple live hypocrisies at play, nothing justifies the mass killing of civilians.
Double standard 1: US condemns similar behavior by Russia in Ukraine but condones Israel’s war on Gaza;
Double standard 2: There have been mass protests in the US and other developed nations against the war in Gaza, while similar protests did not take place when the U.S. behaved similarly in Iraq and Syria, which suggests that we believe that while some nations have a right to defend themselves against brutal attacks, apparently Israel does not.
Double standard 3: We’re also not protesting other mass human rights violations worldwide, especially in Africa. The piece points out that over three times as many children have been displaced by recent fighting in Sudan as in Gaza, and virtually no one is taking to the streets about that.
Back to Williamson, she, and Senator Bernie Sanders, have consistently supported an end to mass US funding of wars and support for international human rights. We could easily fund all the policies most Americans want if we strongly curtailed our nearly trillion-dollar military budget.
(See also a similar but less well-contextualized piece by Ross Douthat in the same publication on the same day: The Justice of Israel’s War in Gaza Will Depend on How It Ends)
