Last Wednesday was my birthday. My roommate got me a bright yellow t-shirt with “VOTE FOR JESUS” in bright red “VOTE FOR PEDRO”-style lettering.
On Thursday. I wore it with pride. I was confronted by John, a white supremacist friend of mine. He told me he was offended by the shirt, because it mocked the majority Christian culture.
I told him, it’s not mockery. I genuinely support writing in Jesus for President as an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.
As people who know me know, I never support Democrats or Republicans for the presidency, though I will often support Democrats for other positions. I am generally a Nader supporter.
This is not some form of anti-pragmatic political purism, as some have accused. Nader is not the candidate whose views I am most aligned with. If my support for a candidate had no pragmatic component, I would support Cynthia McKinney (of the Green Party) or Brian Moore (of the Socialist Party). In Canada, where I actually vote in elections, I vote for the New Democratic Party – the social democratic party that has traditionally been a third party, but is now poised to overtake the Liberal Party as one of the two frontrunning parties (the Liberals having abandoned liberal politics).
My support for Nader is based on the fact that his platform is much more popular than those of Obama, McCain, McKinney or Moore, and is progressive.
Friday night’s debate, which against my usual practice I watched, was a perfect illustration of just how indistinguishable Obama and McCain are, when viewed against a broader background. The candidates agreed on virtually everything.
Both of them thought the surge was a wild success, apparently based on the fact that there has been a lull in the level of violence since it started. As anyone with even limited analytic ability knows, this is poor reasoning. Those who are knowledgeable and thoughtful about the situation, like Juan Cole, are skeptical that the surge caused the lull in violence. Cole suggests in his debate debrief that the reduced levels of violence in Baghdad is the result of the successful cleansing of the cities of its Sunni residents, who have been either massacred or driven out of the city. In other words, it’s not the American surge but the Shia surge that’s responsible for the reduction in violence.
Both McCain and Obama appear to favor increasing the military budget.
Both candidates apparently buy into the lies that the right-wing Zionists concocted, and the Western media has repeated ad nauseam, about Ahmadinejad threatening to wipe Israel off the map. McCain repeated it several times, and Obama never disputed it.
Among the few differences of substance that the candidates emphasized concerned leaving Iraq. They tried to make it look like an big difference: McCain wants to stay in until victory, Obama wants a timetable for withdrawal. But if you look at Obama’s plan as he has consistently articulated it, he’s talking about redeployment rather than withdrawal. He basically favors pulling troops from Iraq and putting them in Afghanistan instead. Neither candidate favors doing what the law requires: ending the occupation of Iraq.
If I had to characterize the foreign policy differences between the two, I would do it this way: McCain prefers to focus on Iraq, while Obama prefers broader aggression including Afghanistan and possibly including Iran and Pakistan. It comes down not to any difference of principle, but to the tactical or strategic question of where the main battle against al-Qaeda is located. (After the debate, I don’t know what “tactics” or “strategy” mean anymore. Strategery, anyone?)
Both apparently support possibly bombing Pakistan, although McCain thinks it’s wrong to talk about it. I guess he thinks it’s better to sing about it.
Both support missile defense. Both support offshore drilling and nuclear power plants.
What are the real differences? Style. As Noam Chomsky says, the people marketing political campaigns are the same guys that market toothpaste. McCain was on the message that Obama isn’t ready to lead. Obama was trying to tie McCain to the Bush catastrophe.
Nader is highly distinguishable from BaJohn McBama/Jorack O’Cain. He favors a lawful foreign policy, including withdrawal from Iraq and refraining from acts of aggression against other countries. He’s against nuclear energy. For an overview on Nader on the issues, and a contrast with the Republicrats, see here: http://www.votenader.org/issues/
This post was written by Uri on September 29, 2008
“BaJohn McBama/Jorack O’Cain”? Really?
Yeah, Jorack O’Cain kind of sucks. I’m sticking with BaJohn McBama though.
Hmm.
I absolutely agree that neither is a true progressive, and it’s not that I love Obama so much — but from where I’m standing, McCain seems bad enough to make Obama a necessary choice. The foreign policy distinctions my be “a matter of style,” but there positions on reproductive rights, among others, are definitely not.
First of all, you can’t vote for Nader, you damned Canadian.
Secondly, Nader has no base of support, no institutional support, and is rejected by major spheres of influence in the U.S., so that means *he will not be elected as the next president of the U.S.*. This leaves us (though unfortunately) with two choices.
Third, given the choice of Obama and McCain (which is the choice facing us, whether we like it or not), the key question is: Is there a significant difference between the two? If there is, then you should vote for the one who most represents your views, and if the disparity between the two is significant enough, then you might even want to actively support one over the other.
In my mind, the differences between Obama and McCain on (1) unions and the Employee Free Choice Act, (2) Roe v. Wade and reproductive freedom, (3) judicial appointments, to the Supreme Court and below are so absolutely oppositional that a rational citizen should choose to vote for, if not campaign for, Obama (in a swing state, at least).
Your right about Ahmadinejad, he loves Israel and absolutely doesn’t support Hamas. Yeesh.
They have some similarities on vital issues to be sure. But on other issues they couldn’t be further apart. As Daisy and Jeff point out, on reproductive rights they stand opposed. Health Care, the makeup of our courts, adherence to the constitution and respect for our civil rights are all at stake in this election.
Additionally, on foreign policy as much as they strike the same tune, they diverge on questions of diplomacy and casus belli. McCain is more violent than Bush. Obama, while surely not a dove, is not suggesting we continue the Bush strategy of reshaping the middle east with our bombs.
The point is who wins in the election, while far from ideal, will impact peoples lives. We need to be taking steps forward while we learn how to jump, not running backwards.
jeff: “Secondly, Nader has no base of support, no institutional support, and is rejected by major spheres of influence in the U.S., so that means *he will not be elected as the next president of the U.S.*. This leaves us (though unfortunately) with two choices.”
actually, nader has a base in the US public. his positions are much more popular than mcbama’s. his politics are indeed rejected by the ruling elite, but there are power centers outside the elite. as i’m sure you recognize, popular support is a source of power in a democratic country.
you are not politically limited to two choices. you can vote for nader, vote for mckinney, vote for brian moore, eat your ballot (http://edibleballot.tao.ca/), or choose one of any number of alternatives.
you can *choose* to limit yourself to mcbama, but that’s not a rational, humanistic choice, it is submission to a slavish ideology peculiar to american electors.
your argument assumes that the only function of a vote is to add one to the column of a candidate who is likely to win an election. the assumption is wrong. a vote also has the function of demonstrating support for a candidate who is not likely to win the current election, which makes the candidate or party more likely to win future elections.
even granting the assumption that the only function of the vote is to add to the total of a candidate with a realistic shot of winning the present election, it makes no sense for you to vote for obama over nader, if you think nader would make a better president. first, the possibility that your vote will be the decisive one is infinitessimal, even if you’re in a competitive state.
second, you’re not in a competitive state. obama is a shoo-in to win massachusetts. in the extremely unlikely event that he loses massachusetts, there is no chance that he would win 269 electoral college votes. it’s a less likely scenario than nader getting 270 electoral college votes.
therefore it is more likely that you voting for nader would be the decisive vote for nader, than that your vote for obama will be decisive for obama.
“Your right about Ahmadinejad, he loves Israel and absolutely doesn’t support Hamas. Yeesh.”
your sarcasm is way off target. as is your punctuation.
Dang,,, liberal, elitist.
The thing is Uri that many of Nader’s positions do enjoy wide support, Nader himself does not. That would be worth exploring.
One wonders, are you in a competitive state? Will that effect how you vote, and how you invite people to vote?
i live in a competitive state, but i vote in canada, where votes are tallied by riding (political districts containing about 100,000 people on average). my sense is that the thornhill riding is competitive, although they’re not aggressively polled like US states are. i voted for the NDP, which is unlikely to win in my riding or nationally, but neither is impossible.
Uri is wise. Voting your conscience will always be more rewarding (personally) than voting for the lesser of two evils. Let’s suppose that “my favorite flavor ice cream is raspberry” The ice cream parlor I am at doesn’t have it they only have liver flavor and brussel sprout flavor. I guess eating something I like is relevant to how hungry I may be. But at the very least I have the option of going to another parlor to get what I want. With the elections it’s more like “we are going to cut off either your left index finger or your right index finger, you choose.” That’s not the lesser of two evils that attempted damage control and you would probably choose the least dominate hand to jeopardize so you can at least pick your nose comfortably until the next choice for a democrat (left finger) or republican (right finger) until you are fingerless if you live that long due to the hemorrhaging. I voted my conscience and I will still lose a finger but at least I didn’t give the torturer the satisfaction of making me choose which one.