I know this will piss off some and possibly cost me some readers, but I've published dozens if not 100 plus articles bashing Obama and I've reached the conclusion that McCain may very well win because of angry progressives. So I'm going to be trying to persuade you, and you know who you are, that your rationale for supporting a third party candidate or staying home is really a vote to maintain another Bush in the Whitehouse.
I'm getting tired of hearing people say there is no difference between Obama and McCain, that they won't vote for the lesser of two evils. I put those people right up there with the toxic Hillaryites who hate Obama.
Then there are the "don't vote at allers" and the lesser of two evils purists who, practically speaking, by voting for candidates with zero chance of winning, are not really voting in a way that will affect the election.
At this stage in the game, they're all, in my opinion, anywhere from a bit nutty to flamingly out of their minds.
And the afflicted aforementioned people think that Obama is "the same?"
I'm sorry, but this is not sane. Sure, obama is no progressive, not even a liberal, like the GOP claims. He's a centrist, pandering to right-leaning independents and the bluedog democrat types and he will surely get worse before November. But don't even try to tell me he is the same as McCain.
Start with the Supreme Court, move on to Unions, Science, global warming, taking care of the poor and unemployed, cleaning up the gap between rich and poor, taxes, protecting social security, and that's just the beginning.
When you throw your vote away on Nader or McKinney, who are good people, but distractors whose campaigns put the planet at risk of further right wing control, you demonstrate a loss of rationality.
Maybe it's anger. The Democrats deserve an immense amount of anger be directed at them. They suck. But they suck less than the Republicans. They are less destructive, less corrupt. I am not saying they are NOT corrupt. I am saying they are less so.
We need to do all we can to weed out the worst of them. I wrote an article praising PDA-- Progressive Democrats of America and some commenters disparaged them for working within the two party system. Excuse me for functioning in the world of reality. The short term situation is pretty bleak. I'll give you that. Most of the Democrats have repeatedly betrayed the voters. But they control the voting regulations and that means we are stuck with them until civil disobedience or beyond, like we saw in Selma Alabama 40 years ago, forces bigger changes. I don't see any of the victims of the psychoses I've described above doing anything more than calling names or throwing away their votes.
I know this article may infuriate some people and make them former readers. That may be the case. But I'm all about waking people up. I know that it takes a smack to the side of the head to wake some people up and then it takes strong caffeine to keep them up.
There are big problems in America. The Democratic-led congress has earned its dismal, single digit ratings by betraying the American people who elected them. Many incumbents should be voted out of office and I am sure efforts to do that will be redoubled in coming years. But meanwhile, those who have drifted so far left to think that they do the world, democracy or humanity a drop of good by voting, in swing states, for third party candidates, should have their heads examined.
There are huge differences between Obama and McCain. You won't get your pure progressive candidate unless you live in Vermont and can vote for Bernie Sanders-- and even he doesn't support impeachment.
So wake up already and realize that you have two choices-- vote for Obama, who is far from perfect, or do anything else, but realize that by doing so you are helping McCain to win, and that includes just bashing Obama, without offering constructive criticism. Oh, and about the Hillaryites who hate Obama and are still trying to destroy him so the superdelegates will change their mind and vote in Hillary at the convention. You're the most mentally impaired of all. Regardless of the sexism that occurred during the campaign, Hillary lost. Obama won and it is time to move on. The votes weren't stolen. Grown-ups made up their minds. Hillary lost because of her bad choices in following Mark Penn, and weak campaign strategies early on, not because of sexism. Progressives opposed her because she is a DLC conservative Democrat.
Kevin writes that the similarities are more important than the differences, in his diary, It's Not the Differences But the Similarities That Matter.
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