Although Illinoisans of left-of-center persuasions will not have much of a say in who's  going to occupy the White House come January 2013, we still have to decide to vote our fears or our conscience.  The following three blog postings, written by a young ex-Urbanite,  may be  of some interest to those of us who have not yet resolved this internal conflict. <div>



<br></div><div><a href="http://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/the-case-for-obama-or-are-democrats-moving-to-the-right/" target="_blank"> http://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/the-case-for-obama-or-are-democrats-moving-to-the-right/ </a></div>



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<a href="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#search/commie+death/13a1ce5968a764d3" target="_blank">https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#search/commie+death/13a1ce5968a764d3</a><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

<div><a href="http://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/other-side-of-bullshit-mountain/" target="_blank">http://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/other-side-of-bullshit-mountain/</a></div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Niloofar Shambayati<br><br><h1 id="site-title" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:14.666666984558105px;font-style:inherit;font-weight:inherit;margin:0px 270px 0px 0px;outline:0px;padding:3.65625em 0px 0px;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both">
<span style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline"><a href="http://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/" title="Commie Death Squad" rel="home" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:30px;font-style:inherit;font-weight:bold;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(17,17,17);text-decoration:none;line-height:36px">Commie Death Squad</a></span></h1>
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Because it's fun to do bad things.</h2><div style="text-align:left"><span style="font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;text-align:right;color:rgb(55,55,55)"><img src="cid:ii_13a67fb882643d3a" alt="Inline image 1"><br>
</span></div><div id="main" style="border:0px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:1.625em 0px 0px;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(55,55,55);line-height:32px">
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<br><h1 class="entry-title" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:15px 0px 0.3em;vertical-align:baseline;clear:both;color:rgb(0,0,0);line-height:48px"><font>The Other Side of Bullshit Mountain or: What it means to vote for Obama (again)</font></h1>
<div class="entry-meta" style="font-size:12px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(102,102,102);clear:both;line-height:18px"><span class="sep" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">Posted on </span><a href="http://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/other-side-of-bullshit-mountain/" title="9:49 am" rel="bookmark" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-weight:bold;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">October 7, 2012</a></div>
<div class="entry-content" style="font-size:14.666666984558105px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px auto;outline:0px;padding:1.625em 0px 0px;vertical-align:baseline;width:584.2666625976563px"><p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">
Jon Stewart recently <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-19-2012/chaos-on-bulls--t-mountain" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">chewed out the Fox News</a> set for their (typically) cynical defense of Romney’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2gvY2wqI7M" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">leaked “47%” comments</a>: “The biggest problem with the denizens of Bullshit Mountain…is that if they had success, they built it. If they failed, the government ruined it for them. If they get a break, they <em style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">deserve</em> it. If you get a break, it’s a handout and an entitlement. It’s a baffling, willfully blind, cognitive dissonance.” If you read this blog, you know that for me, cognitive dissonance (a polite way of saying hypocrisy) is something of a pet peeve. So you hopefully won’t be too shocked if I add to Jon’s rant a bold thesis: There are more than just Republicans on Bullshit Mountain.</p>
<p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">I recently addressed, <a href="https://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/the-case-for-obama-or-are-democrats-moving-to-the-right/" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">point by point</a>, some of the common arguments for supporting Obama and the Democrats, which mostly hinge on the premise that the choice between the two major candidates/parties this fall is one between gradual progress and a time machine to the Dark Ages. Then I explained <a href="https://commiedeathsquad.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/whos-afraid-of-jill-stein/" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">why I’m supporting Jill Stein</a> and the Green Party, and summarized some key points from their <a href="http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2012/" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">2012 platform</a>. Today I’m going to focus on stuff I didn’t cover in the Sept. 5 post, mostly because it (for whatever reason) hasn’t been trumpeted as a selling point by the Democratic cheerleading-industrial complex.</p>
<p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">Amid the deafening chorus of <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/rebecca-solnit-liberals-leftists-explaining-things?page=1" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">liberals attacking those</a> <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/09/a-short-history-of-the-democracy-and-the-state" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">to their left</a>, a few progressive voices—<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/why-i-refuse-to-refuse-to-vote-for-obama/263116/" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">most notably at</a> <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/why-i-refuse-to-vote-for-barack-obama/262861/" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">The Atlantic</a>, but also, for one, <a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11264-john-cusack-and-jonathan-turley-on-obamas-constitution" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">John Cusack</a>—have drawn what I call “ethical red lines” at the President’s savage, unconstitutional policies of <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/21/as_italy_sentences_23_cia_agents" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">indefinite detention</a> and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/every-person-is-afraid-of-the-drones-the-strikes-effect-on-life-in-pakistan/262814/" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">targeted killing</a> (let’s not act like “drones” are the problem). This dissent is admirable. I think we have the same values. My concern is that by focusing only on the red lines crossed in terms of civil liberties and “foreign” policy, some progressives seem to imply that Obama’s “domestic” policy doesn’t trample the many ethical red lines that they seem so afraid a Romney Administration would cross. It hurts our case to leave them out.</p>
<p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">One supposed liberal value that most actual liberals have been noticeably quiet about is tackling climate change. And who can blame them? It’s hard to see how the President lovingly dubbed “George W. Obama” by <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/8/his_nickname_is_george_w_obama" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">grateful climate change deniers</a> could have a more regressive environmental policy. President Obama, not a Republican, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRIJr2njr98FZuLpxqG0Fy28Xj6A" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">restarted the nuclear energy program</a>, touting the promise of “safe” nuclear energy <a href="http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2011/3/30/despite-fukushima-and-nuclear-pushbacks-abroad-obama-touts-m.html" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">even after the Fukushima disaster</a>. The first two plants he greenlighted are being built in mostly black and poor communities in Georgia and South Carolina, where nuclear leaks <a href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/closer-you-think-top-15-things-romney-and-obama-agree" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">have already been linked to cancer epidemics</a>. He personally propagates the myth of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GehK7Q_QxPc" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">“clean coal”</a>, and has okayed dozens of <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/02-4" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209)">mountaintop removal coal mining projects</a>, which destroy landscapes and dump toxic waste into streams and valleys.</p>
<p style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.625em;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline">President Obama, not a Republican, <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-12/us/drilling.moratorium_1_deep-water-drilling-drilling-rig-oil-drilling?_s=PM:US" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">lifted the moratorium on offshore drilling after the BP oil spill</a>, including <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/22-6" target="_blank" style="border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(25,130,209);text-decoration:none">several projects right in the Gulf of Mexico</a>,...</p>
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