By A G. Moore
8/9/2012In a spirit reminiscent of that summoned for going to the dentist, I begin the first of many election season posts. As with a dental visit, I have delayed taking action. However, much like an aching tooth, circumstances demand that I rise to the occasion. So here I go.Barack Obama has made this a hard year for me. While I believe in compromise, compromised principle never goes down easy. Nonetheless, over the din of disappointed progressive, I feel obliged to raise my voice.Barak Obama has promoted a foreign policy of killer drones; he has a domestic legislative docket which is bereft of gun control proposals; and his national security agenda is characterized by ubiquitous violations of personal liberty. Despite these aberrations from liberalism, I must state the obvious. Barak Obama is not Mitt Romney.Whether it’s tax reform, student loans,or voter ID laws—there’s daylight between the two candidates.In 2000 Ralph Nader proved that point. He painted the Democratic and Republican parties with the same brush and said there was not a whit of difference between them. I don’t think any reasonably honest person, looking at the Bush years, would say that was true.We would not have gone to war against Iraq if Al Gore had been president; the Iraq extravagance was a gift from George Bush and his neocon cronies.There would have been no “Bush Tax Cuts”, without George Bush; those play and don’t pay years were a gift of Republican strongman Grover Norquist.And there surely would have been no retrenchment of EPA enforcement under a President Al Gore.These three differences alone changed the course of history, not only for the U. S., but for the world. The Iraq War helped to radicalize a generation of Islamist activists and drained the U.S. Treasury, thus contributing to the destabilization of the world economy. The Bush Tax Cuts, in addition to further gutting the treasury, also accelerated the middle class’ slide into extinction. And global warming, which was a fact in 2000, now seems to be an irrevocable reality, as we face a future of rising oceans and catastrophic tempests.George Bush famously said, “Elections have consequences”. I’ve only referred to a few of those consequences—I haven’t mentioned, for example, the Alito/Roberts appointments, or the prison industrial complex.Elections do indeed have consequences. These words should be in our minds as we contemplate the billions of dollars poured into the coffers of the two candidates. Those billions are proof that people expect the election to have consequences. What those consequences are is up to us, the voters who will decide this race.Let’s not replay 2000. I don’t think the country could survive another eight years of right-wing Republicanism.Links
New York Times, 11/ 10/2000:: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/us/2000-election-green-party-some-nader-supporters-seem-shaken-not-stirred-result.htmlNader Archives:http://prorev.com/nader.htm
8/9/2012In a spirit reminiscent of that summoned for going to the dentist, I begin the first of many election season posts. As with a dental visit, I have delayed taking action. However, much like an aching tooth, circumstances demand that I rise to the occasion. So here I go.Barack Obama has made this a hard year for me. While I believe in compromise, compromised principle never goes down easy. Nonetheless, over the din of disappointed progressive, I feel obliged to raise my voice.Barak Obama has promoted a foreign policy of killer drones; he has a domestic legislative docket which is bereft of gun control proposals; and his national security agenda is characterized by ubiquitous violations of personal liberty. Despite these aberrations from liberalism, I must state the obvious. Barak Obama is not Mitt Romney.Whether it’s tax reform, student loans,or voter ID laws—there’s daylight between the two candidates.In 2000 Ralph Nader proved that point. He painted the Democratic and Republican parties with the same brush and said there was not a whit of difference between them. I don’t think any reasonably honest person, looking at the Bush years, would say that was true.We would not have gone to war against Iraq if Al Gore had been president; the Iraq extravagance was a gift from George Bush and his neocon cronies.There would have been no “Bush Tax Cuts”, without George Bush; those play and don’t pay years were a gift of Republican strongman Grover Norquist.And there surely would have been no retrenchment of EPA enforcement under a President Al Gore.These three differences alone changed the course of history, not only for the U. S., but for the world. The Iraq War helped to radicalize a generation of Islamist activists and drained the U.S. Treasury, thus contributing to the destabilization of the world economy. The Bush Tax Cuts, in addition to further gutting the treasury, also accelerated the middle class’ slide into extinction. And global warming, which was a fact in 2000, now seems to be an irrevocable reality, as we face a future of rising oceans and catastrophic tempests.George Bush famously said, “Elections have consequences”. I’ve only referred to a few of those consequences—I haven’t mentioned, for example, the Alito/Roberts appointments, or the prison industrial complex.Elections do indeed have consequences. These words should be in our minds as we contemplate the billions of dollars poured into the coffers of the two candidates. Those billions are proof that people expect the election to have consequences. What those consequences are is up to us, the voters who will decide this race.Let’s not replay 2000. I don’t think the country could survive another eight years of right-wing Republicanism.Links
New York Times, 11/ 10/2000:: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/us/2000-election-green-party-some-nader-supporters-seem-shaken-not-stirred-result.htmlNader Archives:http://prorev.com/nader.htm
no place for rumors 