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Voters Have Two Candidates, No Choice
With Mitt Romney’s super-PAC limo now on cruise control to victory at the GOP convention, voters are left with only two reasons to vote against Barack Obama: Either they are desperate to return a white man to the White House or they feel strongly that it is time to break the glass ceiling denying Mormons the presidency.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the University of Chicago. (AP / Steven Senne)
Out of a sense of tolerance I could cotton to the latter—heck, why should the bizarre beliefs of Romney’s church be a deal breaker? I’m hoping for a strong Jewish contender someday and wouldn’t like her burdened with defending Old Testament claptrap.
The problem in this mind-numbing Republican primary season is that the campaign has exposed Romney as not just another white male Mormon like some of the fairly reasonable senators who have represented Utah. Or like Romney’s own father, George, at one time the governor of Michigan. No, this Romney is now widely regarded as the vulture capitalist he is, a politician who is a say-and-do-anything opportunist with no moral limits on his outsized ambitions.
Nothing is sacred to the former Massachusetts governor, not even his own signature health plan that he sold to that state’s voters as the standard for rational government decision-making as regards the deep problems faced by our economy. The weaknesses of what Romney and the GOP deride as Obamacare have been all too obvious in the plan Romney touted in Massachusetts—a mandate to sign up without the cost restraints that a single-payer government program would offer. Now, with a new national plan from Rep. Paul Ryan emerging from the U.S. House, Romney and the Republican Party generally seek to compound that error by undermining Medicare and Medicaid, two programs that offer at least a modicum of cost control. Instead, the candidate and his fellow Republicans would turn consumers over completely to the tender mercies of for-profit insurers.
The justification for gutting what little remains of enlightened government programs to aid the vulnerable is, of course, the dreaded federal deficit. (Lest we forget, seniors were foremost among the vulnerable until the arrival of the programs now under attack.) What is so outrageously hypocritical about the proposals from both Romney and Ryan is that they do not touch, and indeed would further open, the spending spigot that caused all of the red ink following President Bill Clinton’s budget-balancing act.
Both Romney and Ryan want to increase President George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy, which seriously cut revenues while treating as sacrosanct the Cold War levels in military spending that Bush put in place in a wildly irrational response to the 9/11 attacks. This week Ryan announced that defense spending is off-limits, and Romney has campaigned for an increase in what represents more than 40 percent of the non-mandated federal budget.
I can’t wait for the moment in a presidential debate when Romney talks about the need for even more advanced U.S. weaponry to counter the emerging military threat from Communist China and Obama ever so coolly points out that Bain Capital, the company that Romney co-founded, has been supplying those Red tyrants with surveillance equipment to better monitor their citizenry.
With Ron Paul’s fortunes as a presidential candidate declining, there is no pressure on GOP leaders to link a withdrawal from the imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan with a reduced federal handout to the military-industrial complex. Nor will the Republican leadership confront the party’s responsibility for the nation’s economic collapse, the subsequent loss in tax revenues, and the Fed and Treasury policies that bailed out the Wall Street charlatans who invented this meltdown.
Instead of reigning in Wall Street greed, the GOP is demanding a reversal of even the tepid efforts of the Obama administration to hold the financial industry accountable to honest business practices. And, at a time when the largest multinational companies have shifted jobs and profits abroad, the GOP stands for rewarding that betrayal of American workers by eliminating all taxes on overseas corporate profits.
The pity in all this is that a legitimate critique of the Obama record—present to some degree in the Paul dissection of the president’s war policy and his continuation of the Bush Wall Street bailout strategy—will not be heard in the general election debate. Instead, on the one hand, we will have Obama offering clever-sounding arguments for establishment policies that fail to deal with high unemployment, a brutal level of housing foreclosures and sharpening income inequality. And on the other hand there will be a Republican Party so steeped in the ethos of greed, racism and war-mongering that it would leave even Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, were they alive, with no choice but to vote for Obama as the lesser evil.
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58 Comments so far
Show AllOnce more Robert Scheer brings his moral leprosy of the lesser of two evils to print.
Scheer finished his article with "And on the other hand there will be a Republican Party so steeped in the ethos of greed, racism and war-mongering that it would leave even Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, were they alive, with no choice but to vote for Obama as the lesser evil."
Greed, racism and war-mongering. Can anyone write a better description of Barack the Baby Killer Obama? Scheer calls the republicans greedy war-mongers but can't look himself in the mirror or look up and see all the carnage unleased by his personal chain saw serial baby killer. Or maybe dead Muslim babies don't mean much to a Jewish man.
I would prefer Romney over Obama. At least baby killing "progressives" like Robert Scheer might develop a backbone and stand up to the government. But instead Scheer and most other "progressives" with latch their lamprey-like lips to Obama's posterior all the way through the election and beyond.
Jewish "intellectuals" like Scheer need to stand up to evil, not embrace it. We need a new Isaac Bashevis Singer to give voice to decency and humanity, not a slew of Scheers supporting evil.
You are free to vote for whomever you want to and I support your right to do so. But you go vote for the Vampire Squid, ill be voting for the "Baby Killer" as you so maturely put it. Your post has so many pshychiatric red flags you must be a really pissed off Baby Boomer. Consider this a well needed internet hug then, cheers luv!
Perhaps you should examine a bit more critically the differences between the "Vampire Squid" and the "Baby Killer". There really aren't many. They both are active supporters of the 1% objective of wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the ever-increasingly wealthy. The "Baby Killer", in fact, is the only Democratic president ever to put a rollback of Social Security and Medicare "on the table" for discussion. He is anti-union and as pro-business as any president has ever been. If he were white and Mormon you would think he and Romney were brothers.
On foreign policy they are equally indistinguishable. They both are slaves to Israel and they both want to attack Iran to placate their slave owner and to maintain dominance in the region. Perhaps they differ only in the timing, although I'm sure they both would prefer a post-election attack. And at the top of their agenda is the goal of maximizing corporate profitability by expanding the American war economy as a service to their respective backers and handlers. Oh, I forgot, those backers and handlers are the same people.
The "Vampire Squid" would have to go some to equal the mass murdering achievements of the "Baby Killer" but it's probably within his reach. They both retain the psychopathic goal of American hegemony despite the palpable decline of American power and influence in the world.
It's hard to imagine the "Vampire Squid" destroying the Constitution at a faster clip than the "Baby Killer" has, although he might give it a try. As bad as Bush 43 was, no president in history has done more to undermine American civil liberties and freedom than the "Baby Killer" has. This guy is a monster.
Since I, too, see little to choose between them, I do agree that a Romney presidency might arouse some opposition from the Democrats, which would be a good thing. As it stands, Democrats now simply roll over regardless of how destructive and evil the policies of the "Baby Killer" become.
In the end, the mindless support of Obama by Democrats and faux-liberals merely confirms the extent to which both groups are in denial as well as the impotency of the American liberal class. When I was growing up, the idea of a liberal supporting war or defending American hegemony was unthinkable. These days it defines what liberals have become and what they believe. I think the liberal desire to "save" the black people of Africa (e.g., Kony 2012 and Libya) and the brown people of the Middle East (e.g., Syria) shows the extent to which racism has infiltrated the American liberal mind. Maybe it's simply guilt that keeps liberals in the Obama camp. If he were white, I doubt he would be such a favorite of the left (a term which nowadays might apply to anyone more progressive than Rick Santorum).
Perhaps you should ask yourself how you would feel if a Republican president did exactly what Obama has done over the last three plus years. Do you think you would support him similarly? I'm guessing not a chance.
Where is Che Guevara when you need him?
Wow! Thank you Saroman for this wonderful post. I hope Robert Scheer sees it. Maybe he'll learn something.
Yup the Company is going to war with Iran and they don't need no stinking elections to do it. Obama or Romney, we get more war.
I do have to disagree with this statement in your comment:
" I think the liberal desire to "save" the black people of Africa (e.g., Kony 2012 and Libya) "
There is nothing liberal about the Kony video producers, Invisible Children. They are a cross between Christian fanaticism and Company soft ops.
US/NATOil bombed Libya to support the rebels, who were proven to have engaaged in racist violence and murder against black African migrant workers.
Saroman, I'm thinking that perhaps you are a relative youngster? "When I was growing up, the idea of a liberal supporting war or defending American hegemony was unthinkable." Otherwise you would have known that many of us already knew exactly what liberals were all about, even way back when. In fact, as I recall it, LBJ was a very great liberal and crashed and burned exactly because of "defending American hegemony" in SE Asia. Just think what American could have been like if he had put an end to that.
Here is a song stanza to remind you, or clue you in, as the case may be:
"I read New Republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal"
From "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" by Phil Ochs whose voice is still sorely missed.
Saroman, one of the best rebuttals I’ve seen here. And since I’ve not seen you before just a heads up; the Dem Courtiers on this site use multiple sock puppet identities to attack those who have awakened to the Two Party canard.
Tom-- nicely stated as well.
ditto
To paraphrase,
"Stay inside the corporate fence! The part of the fence maintained by the democrats is SO much prettier because they know how to whitewash so much better!"
Scheer is such a hack!
The "Bush" taxcuts are the Obama taxcuts. Obama rushed to be a part of the corrupt bank bailout. The economic "collapse" was the result of the deregulation which Clinton made possible.
Lesser evil, my ass.
oh sod off with your selective memory. You know as well as I do that deregulation was Reagan's baby. Also Obama was held over a barrel by the republican controlled Congress who would not pass critical year end legislation with out the tax cuts being extended, mainly an extension of unemployment. You speak as if Obama and Clinton actually campaigned on programs for the wealthy. Please there are meds you can take for your delusions dude!
"Mobious"
Your comment about selective memory is understandable because YOU are a perfect example of it.
Clinton signed the law which eliminated regulations which had been in place since the 1930s. He did NOT have to do it because the republicans would override his veto, as many want to believe. The republicans alone did not have enough votes. He signed it for the same reason he hired Larry Summers to head the Treasury Department - because it was his agenda. Clinton and Obama both have stated their great admiration of Reagan.
Since Reagan, all of the presidents have been continuing the same agenda of tearing apart the socially beneficial government programs and selling off our now former rights.
It truly is hard to tell which of these corporate controlled liars has done the worst harm, but Reagan was an amateur compared to Obama.
Nicely stated. Mobpiss prefers a dream world to the the truth.
Yeah, and Obama campaigned on the promise of creating the most transparent Presidency ever. Who cares what Obama says? There is no doubt that he is a friend of the banksters, a warmonger and an enemy of open government.
Clinton signed the repeal of Glass Steagall, and Obama is trying to ram 1% de-regulation champ, Larry Summers down the throats of the 3rd world at the World Bank.
You go take your pills, you trash talking bullshitter!
We're screwed either way. I will spend the rest of the prez election cycle trying to wake up the Obambots that surround me and figure out who to write in (Nader, Bernie Sanders, etc.) or vote for third party (Jill Stein) in Nov..
The other thing to do during the remaining months before Nov., far more important than the elections, is to support and participate in the Occupy movement wherever we can.
Replace politics of fear (lesser of two evils) with politics of courage. Vote for the alternative or third party which embraces your values. I'm voting for Jill Stein and the Green's New Deal. Maybe not the answer to all our problems, but a step in the right direction instead of two steps backward.
"The other thing to do during the remaining months before Nov...."
Vote for Stein in Nov, but why not take the time to vote for Paul in your primary, if it hasn't taken place yet? If he won, you'd at least get some good debates about war and peace, the Patriot Act and other civil liberties issues, the bank bailouts and the fed, plus a chance to hear Obama stand up for Social Security and other social programs (or would he be able to work out a 'grand compromise' even with Paul's ideas?!) out of it. If he loses, maybe your vote would get Paul to run third party, which would be good strategy, since it would surely take votes from the two big parties but more from the Republicans.
And if he won the Presidency, would he be worse than Romney or Santorum? Check him out on Jay Leno, two days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zy_XJKJqhU
What else are you doing with your primary vote?
You Ron Paul zombies just sit in wait at every internet forum. Please sell your snake oil somewhere else.
No way in hell will I vote for Romney or Obama, but not Plutocrat Paul either.
I'll gladly vote Green or Socialist. But I'd sooner write in my dog's name than vote for Paul.
Ron Paul is the Amway of US politics.
Is there something you disagree with regarding the logic of what I wrote? By the way, I have never voted for a Republican before for any office, although when I was 21 I did vote Libertarian once (45 years ago). Four years ago I voted for McKinney; eight, twelve, sixteen, ad infinitum years ago I voted for whoever the Democrat was then (I don't like to remember too much about that period). It just makes sense to vote for Paul in the primary. What is the downside, that you'd have to register Republican?
While your logic is correct it appears bizarre due to the distorted nature of imperial electoral politics.
I agree, the "lesser of two evils" argument just doesn't cut it. If you vote for a 3rd party it keeps that voice in the mix, helps keep the 3rd parties on the ballots and if they are not there and no one can vote for them, how will they ever win anything? If the Obama-Romney Coalition Party mahcine wins, it wins. Then, after the Obama-Romney Coalation wins again, the 3rd party voices will be all that much more important. So, this time, don't vote for Obama or Romney, vote for a 3rd party of your choice.
If Robert Scheer were a candidate for president and he expressed his logic and political perspective to me to induce me to vote for him, I would not be impressed. So who is he to judge the run of the only two candidates he believes I as a voter have a choice to vote for, which in his opinion gives me no choice at all?
Both parties are "reigning in Wall Street greed". Note the spelling.
Shorter Scheer:
A pox on both their houses-- but I'm checking into Obama's house anyway, because it doesn't smell as bad as the other guy's.
____________________
This does have its own impregnable self-validating, self-confirming logic-- the converse of "the grass is always greener on the other side".
Scheer's spent a lifetime camped out on the Democratic Party's lawn, like a living lawn jockey. So of course he's become habituated to their reek, and honestly can't perceive or detect it any more.
Whereas a whiff of that vile Republican camp truly makes him retch.
This allows cognitive dissonance to kick in, and leave the Scheers of the world with the genuine impression that they can sensibly and realistically choose a perceived lesser-evil in good conscience.
Sums it up pretty good.
Update.
I pledge allegiance to the logos of the United States of Global Corporate Domination and to the corruption for which it lies,
One corporo-nation,
under a god-lust of avarice,
with liberty and justice going to the highest bidder.
No,no,no. NO. Do NOT vote for Obama or Romney. Vote third party. Please. Tell Washington, tell the DemPublicans, tell the world that you do NOT like a choice between a Black war-mongering Wall Street liar and a Mormon war-mongering Wall Stree liar. Vote Green Party. Vote Working Families Party. Vote Libertarian Party. Vote for trotskism, or for marijuana, or for meditation. But, please, do NOT vote for Obama or Romney. We cannot take it any more. The planet cannot take it any more.
Thanks Robert Scheer for eloquently articulating why it is futile for voters to limit themselves to the two corporate candidates in the next presidential election. I didn't need any convincing, but many people do, so this article is useful. How about now writing a follow-up article presenting the views of non-corporate candidates? We should have more of that. To read and re-read about the futility of staying with the two corporate parties gets tiring. We get it; let's move on.
Yes, articles on the best third-party choices would be helpful. And perhaps we could get some of the horse-race type of reporting of the jockeying for that third position. In other words it is time to shine a spotlight on the third-party choices and make coming in third respectable in order that more citizens, and hopefully the voting and organizing type citizens, can see them and take some interest in building a political organization that is not controlled by the corporations.
Possibly one or two of those third-party choices might mutter something about electoral reform once in a while. If the GOP were to seriously promote a decent electoral reform package that would end the corporate controlled two party dominance I would be hard pressed not to endorse them.
There is no "lesser". One party, one evil.
Your choice for the next administration is Cheneybush v3.2 or Cheneybush v4, Now In Whiteface!
Goebbels sez
Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report isn't buying the "Lesser Evil" crap -- No Siree:
Why Barack Obama is the More Effective Evil
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil
"Glen Ford at the Left Forum
"No matter how much evil Barack Obama actually accomplishes during his presidency, people that call themselves leftists insist on dubbing him the Lesser Evil. Not only is Obama not given proper credit for out-evil-ing George Bush, domestically and internationally, but the First Black President is awarded positive grades for his intentions versus the presumed intentions of Republicans. As the author says, this “is psycho-babble, not analysis. No real Left would engage in it.”
Glen Ford documents the multiple and serial ways in which Obama is more Bush/Cheney than Bush and Cheney ever dared to be on a whole variety of issues. It's good stuff.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet never sleeps. Still, it hungers. What's an intellectual to do but repeat himself? Even to himself, he must seem tired and dreary. Not every day will be St. Crispin's Day.
Maybe our problem on the left is linkage between intellectuals and the street soldiers or unity of message. The mechanisms of the American right-wing machine seem so much more efficient in moving from think tank to message agency to mouthpieces to street action. And it could be we're far more individualist than the right-wing asserts themselves to be.
How the conflicted, illogical, hypocritical, ahistorical right can garner more than 10% of the American vote remains a mystery to me.
Odd that someone with your gift for words would miss the obvious:
Did you forget who owns media? What Murdoch likes to publish? What Tea Party events and/or corrupt governors the Koch Brothers' big $ gets behind? And then let's not be so hasty as to leave out the powerful PR influence of ALEC.
Every time someone feigns resonance with Progressive values but then repeats the right wing lies that the Left lacks cohesion, message, or the organizational muscle to get its message out there, they're playing into the Goebbels' strategy of repeating the same lies often enough to have most take them for the truth. Isn't that the gist of why it is that in spite of alarming, growing evidence of climate chaos, LESS people believe in global warming today?
Check out Bernays, or "Century of the Self," or how behavior modification words. Then get back to us with a more enlightened analysis.
BTW: If the Right is only concerned with ME and MINE while the Left has to cope with:
1. Falling wages/downsized jobs
2. Falling housing prices/corrupt banker bailouts
3. Climate change
4. Fracking
5. Coal and Mountain top blasting
6. Nuclear Power
7. Unfair elections
8. Abridgements to the Constitution
9. The influence of the MIC and the make-war state (down to The State Department "fixing" evidence to substantiate motive and opportunity)
10. Off-shore oil drilling
11. The Right's attack on unions
12. The Right's attack on public education
13. The Right's attack on women/birth control
14. The Right's attack on voting (voter ID cards and such)
15. A Supreme Court that sees only corporations and the fetus as persons
16. A Captured media
17. Covert attacks on free speech, the right to assemble, added to the NDAA
18. The karmic blowback of all of the above
19.; NAFTA/CAFTA and related insidious trade deals
20. The erosion of the wall between church and state
21. The loss of checks and balances upon Executive power
other...
Because the Big Money interests have waged wars on so many aspects of The Commons and managed to eviscerate the quality of life for so many, the Left faces battles on numerous fronts. To then use the number of battles as cause to suggest the Left lacks coherence is in the league of blaming the rape victim for wearing a red dress (instead of a nun's habit).
"To then use the number of battles as cause to suggest the Left lacks coherence is in the league of blaming the rape victim for wearing a red dress (instead of a nun's habit)."
Sioux Rose,
I will definitely write that one down for future reference. (Excellent)
Thomas Gilbert-
Obama or military mitt? Oh bomber of course. The lesser evil..
One of the things I LEAST miss about the U.S. is voting. Actually, I only regret that my NON vote will no longer count.
Obama will most likely be reelected by a slim margin. It will be said by the MSM that it is proof that most US Americans agree with Obama's actions and policies. And so another nail in the coffin of representative government. Our political system has become such a farce that it would be laughable were it not destroying so many lives. Go ahead and vote for Obama, maybe you will live long enough to explain to your grandchildren why every President you ever voted for took his turn licking the boots of his corporate masters while they raped the planet and the people on it.
You eschew politics. Okay. Got any bright ideas might help drive positive change in this land? Sarcastic condemnations feel good for some, but devoid of a functional offered alternative amount to mere mewling. My grandkids know that!
Your grandkids as you call them are the future. I hope you teach them well. How about teaching them spending your life in the pursuit of money steals more from yourself than it does from others.
Well said, iwonder. The only part I disagree with is your first sentence: my guess is that Obama will win re-election handily, as many people will view the situation in the way Scheer describes. But you are quite right that that will be "another nail in the coffin of representative government." A vote for Obama is an endorsement of the vicious and cynical charade whereby the Democratic candidate positions himself just enough to the left of the extremist Republican to make the differences obvious, but still so far to the right that he is essentially bought and paid for by the rich and corporations. And the Dem will laugh at you on your way to the voting booth because he knows that you are going to vote for him to cut your foot off in order to save yourself from the Republican who will cut your leg off. If you have any self-respect, any guts at all, don't play this game. Better to let the whole house fall down and die with dignity than allow yourself to be used like a pathetic muppet by these despicable Dems.
For the last 20 years I have been voting for the 'lessor of two evils' with the result that the evils keep getting worse and worse...we now have a 'Democratic' president that is to the right of Nixon and Reagan.
The GOP wins if Obama wins or Romney wins. Obama, because he is brown-skinned and has a foriegn sounding name will be more valuable to the GOP, because even as he plays lapdog to the party, they will invoke knuckle-dragger fear of BHO for fundraising purposes. Also, the GOP will attribute every problem in the USA to the presence of a so-called 'liberal' president. I suspect that they might actually want Obama to win for these purposes, hence the absurdity of the GOP field this year.
I will not vote for Obama this year. I gave money and time 4 years ago, and now I burn in anguish for it. I will vote Green or Socialist instead.
Progressives are better off with Romney as president, because when he abuses our nation and world, liberals will be more likely to admit it and might perhaps rally against him.
My single vote against Obama might indeed be a futile, Quixotic gesture, but that is better than betraying my morals.
Democrats are as steeped in greed and war-mongering as Reps. Maybe a little less (or more subtle?) racism. Scheer cites foreign, economic, and social policies but neither he nor commenters so far mentioned destruction of civil liberties that's continued even worse under Obama than under Bush II. Voting for any 3rd party (esp Green or Justice) can send message of protest without guilt that it will help elect the "greater" evil. The difference between greater and lesser is merely marginal.
When Marxists speak of “middle class politics” it is not an epithet, but a sociological definition. Like the varied social strata which find expression in their views, petty bourgeois organizations lack any independent perspective, indeed they are helplessly tied to the political apron strings of the ruling elite.
This means that such middle class politicians, no matter how “left” their rhetoric may sometimes be, accept and work within the existing political set-up. The efforts and aims of the ISO and its allies are entirely compatible with the political domination of big business, the needs of the capitalist state and the continued existence of bourgeois property relations.
Why have the ISO and other “left” forces rallied to the figure of Obama in particular? Central to their theory of American society is the conception that race, and not social class, is the pivotal question. This may or may not extend to the argument that the bourgeois revolution was never completed due to the aborting of radical Reconstruction after the Civil War. Such a view leads to the conclusion that democratic questions need to be addressed in the US, especially racial equality, before the fight for socialism can be placed on the historical agenda.
However worked out its views may be, the American middle class left, fixated on racial divisions and never operating outside the limits set by the bourgeois political establishment, inevitably viewed the possible election of an African American, Democratic Party president as the most earth-shaking event in modern US history, if not the entire history of the nation.
There is nothing original in this. As Marxists and more perceptive historians have pointed out, this is part of a shift that has occurred in Democratic Party, liberal and bourgeois politics in the US as a whole. The orientation toward social class that dominated the American left in particular, at least until the mid-20th century and even later, has given way largely to the politics of personal identity. We have seen a peculiar form of left-liberalism on “cultural” problems emerge, connected with an indifference or blindness to the great problems of the working class, to social inequality, to the need to alter radically the economic system.
Over the past decade, the International Socialist Organization has dabbled in Green Party politics and the Ralph Nader campaigns, claiming that these represent an alternative to the Democratic Party. In fact, both these formations are part of the bourgeois political framework, one of its bulwarks against the development of genuinely independent socialist politics in America.
However, even this exercise in nominally “independent” politics came to a halt in the face of the Barack Obama phenomenon. As indicated above, for the milieu toward which the ISO is oriented and within which it works, the Obama campaign proved absolutely irresistible...-David Walsh
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/iso2-j19.shtml
Their is a lot of truth in your analysis, plus a couple of other examples I could add regarding the useful ( to the ruling class) distractions to corporate control of the government and economic inequality. Those two things are the emphasis on identity politics, such as gay marriage or the election of non-white politicians, more female pols, etc., as well as reproductive politics such as abortion.
And before I get bashed as being callous to women's reproductive rights, let me just clarify that while racism and sexism need to be fought on the left whenever the right throws down the challenge, like Souixrose said, the main focus and energy must always be focused on the economic war between us and the elite. Because that is the only war the elite is really serious about and concerned with, while meanwhile the corporate media is always glad to assist the elite in fanning the flames and focusing the attention on the type of distraction issues like I mentioned as they come along.
For example, I don't know about your recent media experience, but isn't it interesting how the corporate media I see is so obsessed with the black kid being murdered in FLA and the abortion laws in Texas while saying nothing about the smackdown in NY by the cops of Occupy or the fascism in Chicago by Rahm against the NATO summit protesters. And so it continues on and on..
Unlikely voting will change the fact government is owned by corporations. Believing in the power of your vote is a bit like believing in Santa Claus. But yes, to the polls in November!
With every administration the pendulum swings back to the opposite party, meanwhile every political and social agenda degenerates. When will it dawn in the minds of U.S. citizens they are participating in a grand deception? Real change has to come from the people, as the Constitution defines our duty when government is no longer by, for, of.
A sign should read over the voting booths: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
But there is still hope and waits for us to realize: People are not powerless. Don't expect politicians to transform the world into a better place. DIY.
.
fallen leaf wrote:
A sign should read over the voting booths: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
* * * * *
My Reply:
fallen leave,
While I advocate replacing Plurality Voting with a consent / dissent grading scale voting procedure such as Yes No 'Maybe So' Voting or Category Scale Power Voting, and I expect I will vote for Jill Stein if I get the chance and certainly will never vote for either Obama or the Republican nominee (presumably Mitt Romney), I pretty much agree with everything you have said.
I like your appropriation of the phrase "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." for posting above voting booths.
If Dante were alive today, he would probably add a new circle to hell, that is what passes for democracy in United States and elsewhere around the world, for all those who proclaim that working within the system is enough to bring about change.
I have enjoyed reading all your comments, my friends!
I will only add, as usual, that Barbara Lee has proved her bravery. She stood alone against the war-mongers in 2001 and has done so consistently since then.
I suggest that she deserves our support and our admiration for her efforts, even if she is unknown outside of California.
If she were drafted as a candidate of the people, she would steal a lot of Obama's thunder and some of his base, and most importantly, electing her into the White House would probably make Rush Limbaugh's head explode.
Priceless!
If you want to have a choice besides the 2 non-choices, then we must create that choice. I suggest yet again that we choose the person who has walked the walk and proved her bravery time after time.
Make up some seed-bombs that contain marijuana seeds. Toss them on the White House lawn. Walk away.
A fine dream (leave it to a Canuck).
But I doubt the seeds would survive the no-bid, cost-plus Monsanto chemical bath to follow.
I'm with those who refuse to vote for the lesser evil. I'll never vote for someone who punishes Pvt. Manning (no relation), perpetuates and expands MIC control of foreign policy, and tries to take down Wikileaks -- while excusing from any punishment whatsoever the architects of the Bush torture policy, and in fact raising the ante by creating an executive right to murder anyone he chooses. That's just for starters.
Stein and Anderson look like the best third party candidates. I'd like them to be in a run-off so that the strongest would be on the ballot in November. Regardless, my vote goes to one of them, write-in or not.
It seems to me that there's an awful lot of preaching to the choir going on here.
None of the people who're regulars on this site are going to vote for Obama, at least as far as I can tell.
Mr. Scheer has displayed his distaste for the choices before us, and I don't read even a scintilla of support for Obama in his article.
Yet he is roundly trashed as an Obamabot. I read the article twice. Did I miss something?