[GPSCC-chat] Daniel Ellsberg: Defeat Romney

Fri Oct 19 13:01:15 PDT 2012

He says some good things, including the pithiest and most complete indictment of 
Obama I've ever seen:

"A tool of Wall Street, a man who’s decriminalized
torture and is still complicit in it, a drone 
assassin, someone who’s
launched an unconstitutional war, supports kidnapping and 
indefinite
detention without trial, and has prosecuted more whistleblowers like
myself 
than all previous presidents put together. . . .   It’s entirely appropriate to be enraged at 
Barack Obama.  As I am.  He 
has often acted outrageously, not merely timidly or 
'disappointingly.'  If impeachment were politically imaginable on 
constitutional grounds, 
he’s earned it."
But ultimately he's arguing for the lesser evil.  When the lesser evil is a war criminal,the Nuremberg Principles bar me from voting for him--even in a swing state.  That 
would be complicity.  If the Democrats had any integrity, there would have been a 
primary challenger--someone to say "I'm sorry, but we've gone down the wrong 
road, throwing away the rule of law, respect for the Constitution, peace, even simple 
human decency.  It's got to stop."  And then the Obama voters could at least say 
"Well I voted for the other last spring.  I tried."  But the Democrats didn't have 
that dialog, and instead they are corrupting the entire party by pretending that a 
blatant criminal is a worthy candidate.  

I disagree when he says there's a difference between the R's and the D's.  On theissues that concern me (militarism and empire, the Constitution and the rule of
law)
there is no difference.  The agenda there is obviously bipartisan.  I hate to be 
hard-hearted on the social issues, but I consider myself only realistic.  I have workedamong and with the poor and marginalized most of my adult life.  I lived in my carfor a year in NYC.  I feel no obligation to vote on their behalf.  There is not going tobe any meaningful change in this country until they stand up and vote for themselves.I'm not going to do it for them, not so the Dems can brag about tossing a few 
crumbs to the dispossessed while they shovel a trillion a year at the militocracy.  Thelesser-evil choice is short-sighted.  Maybe if the greater plutocrat like Romney wins 
instead of the lesser plutocrat, the 99% will wake up to their rage and their power and 
take over Congress in 2014.  

Here's a cute 50-second video about the fake Coke/Pepsi dichotomy:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmlOfvYpL10&list=UUCU5Ac7Vd7cqPk074nnKSTw&index=1&feature=plcpCatchy music, too.
While Ellsberg is urging swing-staters to vote Democratic, he neglects to even mention that in 
non-battleground states we should vote Third Party to register our disgust with the top options.  He doesn't tell us if he's voting for Obama or Third Party.  Why not?  I'm amazed at how many 
supposedly intelligent Californians are so blinkered by their terror of a Romney win that they 
don't recognize that Obama doesn't even need their votes because his victory in California is 
assured.  The Republicans foster a mirroring terror of an Obama win.  It's good for business.

The electoral college system provides a needed check and balance because the electionsare administered and the votes tabulated state by state, allowing election fraud to beisolated.  It also provides the unique opportunity for third parties to prosper in solidly red 
and blue states, an opportunity we need to seize while we still can.
We need to make substantial progress in 2014.  For me it's been an eight-year war against 
evil, and I have to face up to the fact that no matter what happens this November, evil wins.  
###

> Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:27:01 -0700
> From: gerrygras at earthlink.net
> To: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
> Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Daniel Ellsberg: Defeat Romney
> 
> 
> Food for thought...
> 
> I have a lot of respect for Daniel Ellsberg,
> the man who, at great personal risk, released
> the Pentagon Papers to the world.
> 
> He has written an article
> "Defeat Romney, Without Illusions about Obama"
> "Advice to progressives in swing states, vote for reelection"
> 
> and, according to Ellsberg, (paragraph 9 in this article),
> Chomsky is of similar mind.
> 
> I personally am so angry at the Democrats for
> all they have done, that I can't see me voting
> for Obama, even if I was in a swing state.
> But I have had the luxury of not being in a swing
> state, so never really confronted the issue.
> 
> I still think the lesser of two evils is still
> evil.
> 
> I still think that continuing to vote the lesser
> of two evils is a good cop / bad cop trap.
> 
> I still want IRV and/or PR.
> 
> But out of respect for Ellsberg, and so that we
> are aware of the argument(s), I suggest that you
> read the article:
> 
> "Defeat Romney, Without Illusions about Obama"
> "Advice to progressives in swing states, vote for reelection"
>      http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/18
> 
> Please note that he did NOT say "Vote for Obama".
> 
> I'd like to know what people think.
> 
> And I'd also like to know what Greens in the swing
> states think.
> 
> At times like this, I am grateful we have an electoral
> college, because we have the luxury of being in a non
> swing state.  Oops, I take that back.  Gore might have
> been elected in 2000 if we did not have an electoral
> college.  And does anyone know what the polls say
> about the popular vote difference between Romney and
> Obama?
> 
> Gerry
> 
> P.S. Doesn't Ellsberg live in California?  And Chomsky
> lives in Massachusetts.  Both non swing states.  So
> maybe they are like Michael Moore in 2000.  He went to
> Florida to tell them to vote for Gore because Florida
> was a swing state.
> 
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