But on that subject I read this wonderful article in the Daily Beacon October 30 by Amien Essif and I just wanted to post it. You can reach him @ aessif@utk.edu
Voters should not feel tied to 2-party system
by Amien Essif
If a citizen of a nation feels forced to vote for someone who does not represent him simply because the candidate has a chance at winning, then the nation is not a democracy.
This is the premise on which I am making my first choice for president of the United States. I refuse to vote for either Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama simply because it is my privilege, even my duty, as a citizen of a free country to vote for a candidate I respect, trust and agree with. Both frontrunners are tools in a two-party system that I believe works against democracy.
This November I will vote against corporate sponsorship of elections, against capital punishment, against the World Trade Organization, against mountain-top removal mining, against imperialism, against the U.S. Patriot Act, against an expansion of our bloated military, against the drug war and against the abuses of the Constitution in Guantanamo Bay prison. I will vote for universal health care, instant-runoff voting, gay marriage and a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The question asked of me most often is whether or not we can afford to let the Republicans win in critical times like these. My response is another question: Can we afford to accept a lesser-of-two evils in critical times like these? Can we afford to send the message that political tricks and trade-offs can pacify progressives? Can we afford to accept a mediocre plan for solving the climate crisis, the food crisis, and in the near future, a water crisis, even when the scientific community regularly concludes that anything but a radical reversal of our unsustainable lifestyles will result in mass suffering? Can we afford to attach ourselves to someone we know will fail us?
We know the answer, but still we refuse to act on what both our instincts and our intellect urge us. We refuse to accept that Obama would be a topical treatment at best for what ails our world. Far from personally attacking a man whom I’m sure has convinced himself that what he is doing is right, I am merely stating what is obvious to so many of us at this intellectual institution. War begets war, and we can have no more of it. Nuclear arms, even when in storage, are an affront to humanity, and we must stop manufacturing them. Capital punishment, detainment at Guantanamo Bay, jail time for marijuana use, and mountain-top removal mining are barbaric, and we must end these policies, not vote for them.
Yet once again we fold under the heavy blanket ceiling of the ballot booth, burdened by weighty words such as hope and change. Are we still children? Have we forgotten that we have little hope for change as long as Democrats know they can steal our support by blackmailing us with the threat of another conservative president? John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were responsible for the Vietnam War. Sen. Joseph Biden is responsible for the war on drugs. Bill Clinton is responsible for NAFTA. So don’t be fooled. Obama will not wait long to begin reaching across the aisle for backwards, immoral policies to place on the public’s back, forcing us to carry it to high ground as an offering to the corporate giants who made him a star.
Then all the Obama pins will unclasp from the backpacks. The chalk murals of red, white and blue sunrises will wash from the sidewalk. The shirts will go into storage for 10 years until we can pull them out again and pretend that Obama was so much better than the Republican we’ll have in office then, on the other side of the political cycle that we do nothing to break.
But meanwhile, while those shirts are still newly folded and packed away, you’ll shake your head and ask, “How could we have known? What could we have done?”
The truth is that we knew the answer on Nov. 4. We saw their Web sites and their bumper stickers and we thought, well, there’s nothing to do but go along with it. And we were lying to ourselves. There are options that don’t come with disillusionment, but they are forced into obscurity or ridiculed by the system that they challenge.
Without challenging the system, though, we cannot expect an end to its byproducts like climate change and poverty. All my convictions, all my reading and all my reason urge me to vote for the Independent candidate Ralph Nader on Tuesday, and I’m proud to acquiesce.
If you feel neither Obama, McCain nor Nader represent you, choose another candidate. If you dislike the whole thing, don’t vote. Do what you think is right, not what is a little better. Go on record in future textbooks as one of the few humans alive who knew what was going on. Vote your conscience.
That's good stuff. But yeah yall vote for whoever you think is best! Deuces!
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