{"id":1946,"date":"2012-10-29T11:15:48","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T15:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=1946"},"modified":"2012-10-30T06:57:41","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T10:57:41","slug":"even-if-youre-disappointed-in-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=1946","title":{"rendered":"Progressives: Defeat Romney\/Ryan in Swing States"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is critical to prevent a Republican administration under Romney\/Ryan from taking office in January 2013.<\/p>\n

The election is just a week away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally like mine — progressives, especially activists — to make this a high priority.<\/p>\n

An activist colleague recently said to me: \u201cI hear you\u2019re supporting Obama.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I was startled, and took offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lose no opportunity,\u201d I told him angrily, \u201cto identify Obama publicly as a servant of Wall Street: a man who\u2019s decriminalized torture and is still complicit in it, a drone assassin, someone who\u2019s launched an unconstitutional war, who claims authority to detain American citizens and others indefinitely without charges or even to execute them without due process, and who has prosecuted more whistleblowers like myself than all previous presidents put together.\u00a0Would you call that\u00a0support?\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend said, \u201cBut on\u00a0Democracy Now\u00a0<\/em>you urged people in swing states to vote for him!\u00a0\u00a0How could you say that?\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t live in a swing state, but I will not and could not vote for Obama under any circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said to him: \u201cLike it or not, we have a two-party system in America.” (Why a Two-Party System is Inevitable in the United States and What to do About it<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span>\u00a0 The only real alternative for the next four years is Mitt Romney, who has endorsed every one of those criminal and unconstitutional offenses. And those are promises I believe he will keep.\u00a0 That\u2019s a terrible situation, but it won\u2019t be improved by replacing Obama with Romney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t \u2018support Obama.\u2019 I oppose the current Republican party. Obama\u2019s policies, as I see them, range from criminal to–at their best–improvements on the recent past, partial and inadequate. \u00a0But current Republican policies range from criminal to disastrous.\u00a0 That\u2019s not really a hard choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

This not a contest between Barack Obama and a progressive–primary challenger or major candidate–or even a Republican who\u2019s good on foreign policy and civil liberties like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. What voters in a handful or a dozen close-fought swing states are going to determine on November 6 is whether or not Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are going to wield great political power for four, maybe eight years.<\/p>\n

A Romney\/Ryan administration would be no better on any of the constitutional violations I mentioned, or on anything else. But it would be catastrophically worse on many other important issues: The likelihood of attacking Iran, Supreme and Federal Court appointments, the economy and jobs, women\u2019s reproductive rights, health coverage, the safety net, green energy and the environment.<\/p>\n

As Noam Chomsky said recently (The Role of the Executive<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span>: \u201cThe Republican organization today is extremely dangerous, not just to this country, but to the world. It\u2019s worth expending some effort to prevent their rise to power, without sowing illusions about the Democratic alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also told an interviewer (How Progressives Should Approach Election 2012<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span>: \u201cBetween the two choices that are presented, there are I think some significant differences. If I were a person in a swing state, I\u2019d vote against Romney\/Ryan, which means voting for Obama because there is no other choice. I happen to be in a non-swing state, so I can either not vote or — as I probably will — vote for [Green Party candidate] Jill Stein.\u201d<\/p>\n

I see it the same way.\u00a0 Chomsky lives in Massachusetts, a \u201csafe\u201d blue state.\u00a0 I too live in a non-swing state, blue California, so I, too, intend to vote for a progressive candidate, either Jill Stein or (as a write-in) my friend Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party.<\/p>\n

Along with Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Frances Fox Piven, Cornel West, and others, I have encouraged others in non-swing states (including red states like Texas and Mississippi) to consider doing the same, in contrast to what we urge progressives in swing states to do, which is to vote against Romney\/Ryan by voting for Obama\/Biden (Make Your Progressive Vote Count for President<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span>.<\/p>\n

We see long-term merit for our movement in registering a large protest vote against both major candidates and in favor of a truly progressive platform.\u00a0 In the almost 40 non-swing states–red or blue–that can be done without significant risk of affecting the electoral votes of those states or the final outcome in favor of the Republicans.<\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t true in the dozen or less battleground states\u2014Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, along with Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania\u2014where decisions by relatively small numbers of progressives to vote for a third party or not to vote at all would risk and might well result in a Republican triumph. That risk, as we see it, outweighs any benefits there might be in pursuing votes for a progressive third party in those states.<\/p>\n

I personally agree with almost everything Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson have to say–except when they say \u201cVote for me\u201d in a swing state.<\/p>\n

This election is a toss-up.\u00a0 That means this is one of the uncommon occasions when we progressives\u2014a small minority of the electorate\u2014could actually determine the outcome of a national election. We might swing it one way or the other by how we vote and what we say about voting to fellow progressives in the battleground states.<\/p>\n

Given that third-party candidates with genuinely progressive platforms are on the ballots of most of these swing states, their supporters\u2014who might successfully encourage those with the same values to vote for Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson instead of Obama\u2014could well provide the margin for Romney that would send him to the White House.<\/p>\n

If, to the contrary, such voters in those states could be convinced to overcome their disinclination to vote for Obama , \u00a0they could crucially block the far more regressive agenda of the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Our task is clear. The\u00a0only\u00a0way to block Romney\/Ryan from office\u00a0is to persuade enough people in swing states to vote for Obama–not stay home or vote for someone else.\u00a0 And that has to include progressives and disillusioned liberals who are inclined not to vote at all or vote for a third-party candidate (because like me, they\u2019re not just disappointed but disgusted and even enraged by much of what Obama has done in the last four years and will probably keep doing).<\/p>\n

This is not easy.\u00a0 But it\u2019s precisely the effort Chomsky says is worth expending right now to prevent the Republicans\u2019 rise to power.\u00a0 And it will take progressives\u2014some of you reading this, I hope\u2014to make that effort effectively.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true the differences between the major parties are not nearly as large as they and their candidates claim, let alone what we would want. In many aspects, especially in the areas of foreign and military policy and civil liberties that are the focus of my own activism, their policies closely converge (though small differences remain significant, all favoring Obama\/Biden over Romney\/Ryan).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even fair to use Gore Vidal\u2019s metaphor that they form two wings (\u201ctwo right wings\u201d) of a single party, the Money or Plutocracy Party, or, as Justin Raimondo calls it, the War Party.<\/p>\n

Still, the reality is there\u00a0are\u00a0two distinguishable wings, and\u00a0one is even worse than the other.\u00a0\u00a0 To deny that reality serves only the possibly imminent, yet still avoidable, victory of the worse.<\/p>\n

The traditional third-party mantra, \u201cThere\u2019s no significant difference between the major parties\u201d amounts to saying:\u00a0\u201cThe Republicans are no worse, overall.\u201d\u00a0 And that\u2019s absurd. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended.\u00a0 It\u2019s\u00a0crazily divorced from the present reality.\u00a0\u00a0(I say that, although I agree with virtually every passionate criticism of Obama\u2019s policies I\u2019ve ever heard from the left.\u00a0 What I don\u2019t hear from third-party partisans is comparable realism about the Republicans.)<\/p>\n

Some progressives who do acknowledge that the Romney\/Ryan party is \u201cmarginally\u201d worse in some respects nevertheless believe that \u201cworse is better\u201d for progress in the longer run, by evoking more effective protest and resistance\u2014especially from Democrats in Congress and the media\u2014and a popular turn to leftist leadership and policies. But, historically, they\u2019re profoundly wrong. That hoary theory would seem to have been well-tested and demolished by eight years under George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s very harmful to be propagating either of those false perspectives.\u00a0 They encourage progressives in battleground states either to refrain from voting or to vote for someone other than Obama, and, more importantly, to influence others to do the same.\u00a0That serves no one but the Republicans and the 1%, and not only in the short run.<\/p>\n

It is true that Obama has often acted outrageously, not merely timidly or \u201cdisappointingly.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0If impeachment on constitutional grounds were politically imaginable, he\u2019s earned it (like George W. Bush, and many of his predecessors!)\u00a0 It is entirely understandable to not want to reward him with another term or a vote that might be taken to mean trust, hope, or approval.<\/p>\n

But to punish Obama by depriving him of progressives\u2019 votes in battleground states and hence of office, in favor of Romney and Ryan, would serve to punish most of the poor and marginal in society, along with women, workers and the middle class. It would mean the end of Roe v. Wade<\/em>, via Supreme Court appointments.<\/p>\n

And the damaging impact would be not only in the U.S. but worldwide. In terms of the economy, I believe the Republicans would not only deepen the recession, but could convert it to a Great Depression.\u00a0 They would attack women\u2019s reproductive rights globally, and further worsen the environment and the prospects of climate change.\u00a0 Disastrously, it could lead to war with Iran (a possibility even with Obama, but far more likely under Romney).<\/p>\n

The re-election of Obama, in itself, is not going to bring serious progressive change, end militarism and empire, or restore the Constitution and the rule of law.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s for us and the rest of the public to bring about after this election and for the rest of our lives — through organizing, building movements, and agitating.<\/p>\n

But to urge people in swing states to \u201cvote their conscience\u201d by voting for a third-party candidate is dangerously misleading advice. I would say to a progressive in a battleground state that if your conscience is telling you to vote for someone other than Obama, you need a second opinion. Your conscience seems to be ignoring the realistic impact of your actions or inactions.\u00a0 You need to reexamine your estimates of likely consequences and moral reasoning.<\/p>\n

Our demonstrations, petitions, movement building and civil disobedience\u2014including protest and resistance to the wrongful practices of the incumbent administration–are needed every month, every year, including campaign seasons like this one. [I faced trial two weeks ago, with fourteen others, for civil disobedience protesting Obama\u2019s continued tests of the Minuteman III ICBM\u2019s, my fifth arrest protesting policies of President Obama, including the treatment of Bradley Manning and the continuation of war in Afghanistan).<\/p>\n

But it has been clear for months that this is a moment when effective resistance to an even worse alternative administration that is within sight of power is also urgently needed, leading up to and on Election Day.<\/p>\n

In this last week of this campaign, there is no more effective or pressing political effort which progressives can undertake than to make their voices heard–through e-mails, blogs, social media, and public appearances–to encourage citizens in swing states to vote against a Romney victory by voting for the only real alternative, Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

(Daniel Ellsberg is a former State and Defense Department official who released the top secret Pentagon Papers in 1971, for which he faced 115 years in prison (charges dismissed for governmental misconduct figuring in the impeachment hearings for Richard Nixon that led to his resignation).\u00a0 He has been arrested more than 80 times subsequently for actions of non-violent civil disobedience.\u00a0 He is the author of “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers,” and is currently writing a book on his experience as a nuclear war planner.\u00a0 He lives in Kensington, California, with his wife Patricia, sister of Barbara Marx Hubbard.)<\/em><\/p>\n

(If you have a Guest Column that you would like to submit, send it to\u00a0Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0Not all material submitted is accepted for publication, but we appreciate each submission.)<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is critical to prevent a Republican administration under Romney\/Ryan from taking office in January 2013. The election is just a week away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally like mine — progressives, especially activists — to make this a high priority. An activist colleague recently said to me: \u201cI hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[384,387,392,380,371,389,383,385,368,390,388,391,379,369,382,386,52,381],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-column","tag-barack-obama","tag-battleground","tag-daniel-ellsberg","tag-democrat","tag-election","tag-liberals","tag-mitt-romney","tag-noam-chomsky","tag-obama","tag-political","tag-progressives","tag-reelection","tag-republican","tag-romney","tag-ryan","tag-swing-state","tag-the-global-conversation","tag-vote"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1974,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions\/1974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}