Here is an excerpt:
So at election time, we have a choice between two proven failures.
That's why I don't put much stock in presidential elections and much prefer to focus on building a mass movement.
As Howard Zinn used to say, voting is the least important political action you can take.
(Side note: As someone that always encourages everyone to exercise their civic duty and vote, each year I am more convinced that this can actually be a negative given the bizarre reasons that many give for voting the way they do.)
Still, I'm torn. I feel the impulse to renounce Obama, and I understand the tactical arguments to vote for him.
Ultimately, voting for President may be as much an existential exercise as it is a political choice.
Do you-do I?-say no to Obama and to the Democrats and no to the two-party system, understanding full well that defiance is likely to be a lonely and ineffectual one?
Or do you-do I?-swallow hard and vote for the man we've been criticizing so loudly for three and a half years because the guy he's running against, the rightist movement behind that guy, is so hideous, knowing full well that by doing so, we'll be giving our vote to a man who hasn't earned it and to a party that is in hock to the corporate powers that be?
Do you-do I?-vote for Obama because in some areas he might make people's lives less miserable than Romney would?
For what it is worth, I was able to justify Bush's re-election with the hope/belief that his gross mismanagement and the hole he would put us in would actually wake up many Americans and we would see some change. On one hand, I felt justified in his disastrous presidency, but obviously, we obviously haven't learned based on the current state of affairs.
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ReplyDeleteHey bro- well so much for setting up a cool user name. Signed in to AIM with my EvDaddy4Pres user name, but it ain't the one blogger is using. Anyway, just wanted ya to know that.
ReplyDeleteYes, we sure haven't learned much. But also, mass movements take time- and have been so incredibly hindered by big money and the corporations that own the information and control/spin the debate! Instead of us, for example, all agreeing that global warming is real and needs to be reversed. The citizenry has bought the whole "it's only a theory" thing. Why? Because the oilmen need their short term profits, no matter what the cost to our planet and our future generations. Guess what I'm trying to say here is- follow the money. Out of the schools, into the prisons. Out of the green jobs, into the bank accounts of the oil and gas men. Why haven't we woken up and demanded/created a system that works for the majority of us? Because so many of us are distracted, misinformed, tricked, lied to, spun around, beaten down and too apathetic to imagine another world, let alone create one.
The Occupy movement was/is the closest thing we've had to striking at the heart of the problems in this country, and indeed much of the "developed world". Follow the money. It ain't leading anywhere pretty.