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<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>On the contrary Jenifer !</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>Myself and many others are voting for the ONLY
REAL opposition party on the ballot in the state of Illinois, in opposition to
the two corporate contolled parties.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>YOU and others like you are throwing your vote
away by voting for a corporate contolled boot licker who is a no different than
his so called opponent.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>Until you and others realize this and begin to
make changes within the democratic party, NOTHING will change for the
better and will only get worse. </FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>Respectfully</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial>David Johnson</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Arial></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jencart13@yahoo.com href="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com">Jenifer
Cartwright</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=dlj725@hughes.net
href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">David Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, November 03, 2012 11:34
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Peace-discuss] (no
subject)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top>Hey, it's yr vote, throw it away if that's how you get yr
kicks. Sad.<BR><BR>--- On <B>Sat, 11/3/12, David Johnson <I><<A
href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">dlj725@hughes.net</A>></I></B>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><BR>From:
David Johnson <<A
href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">dlj725@hughes.net</A>><BR>Subject:
[Peace-discuss] (no subject)<BR>To:
Undisclosed-Recipient:;@mail0.frost.chambana.net<BR>Date: Saturday,
November 3, 2012, 7:59 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV id=yiv300740129>
<STYLE></STYLE>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<H2><FONT size=4>
<P><FONT size=4>" I would rather vote for something I want and not get
it, than to vote for something I did NOT want and end up getting it.
"</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>Eugene Debs </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT size=4>On Tuesday I will be happily pulling the lever for
</FONT><A href="http://www.jillstein.org/" rel=nofollow
target=_blank><FONT size=4>Jill Stein</FONT></A><FONT size=4>, the
Green Party candidate for president. The ONLY REAL opposition party
and opposition candidate against corporate rule on the
ballot in the state of Illinois !</FONT></P></FONT>
<P><FONT size=4><FONT size=4>Nov</FONT>ember 3, 2012</FONT></P></H2>
<DIV id=yiv300740129post-7919
class="yiv300740129post-7919 yiv300740129post yiv300740129type-post yiv300740129status-publish yiv300740129format-standard yiv300740129hentry yiv300740129category-green-party yiv300740129category-obama yiv300740129category-parliamentary-cretinism">
<H3 class=yiv300740129storytitle>25 reasons not to vote for Obama
</H3>
<DIV class=yiv300740129meta><FONT size=4>Filed under: </FONT><A
title="View all posts in Green Party"
href="http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/green-party/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>Green Party</FONT></A><FONT
size=4>,</FONT><A title="View all posts in Obama"
href="http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/obama/" rel=nofollow
target=_blank><FONT size=4>Obama</FONT></A><FONT size=4>,</FONT><A
title="View all posts in parliamentary cretinism"
href="http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/category/parliamentary-cretinism/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>parliamentary
cretinism</FONT></A><FONT size=4> — louisproyect @ 11:03 pm
<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=yiv300740129storycontent>
<P><FONT size=4><IMG class=yiv300740129aligncenter title=obama alt=""
src="http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/1103-obama-romney-campaign-sprint.jpg/14212161-2-eng-US/1103-obama-romney-campaign-sprint.jpg_full_380.jpg"
width=380 height=253></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>1. His key appointments indicated a tilt toward Wall
Street. Tim Geithner, his Secretary of the Treasury, was the brains
behind TARP–in other words “too big to fail”. As head of the United
States National Economic Council, Larry Summers pushed for tax cuts
rather than New Deal type spending on roads, bridges, etc. Before
becoming Attorney General, Eric Holder was at a Washington law firm
that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the
center of alleged foreclosure fraud. That, no doubt, is why a Justice
Department panel investigating mortgage security fraud is being
starved for funds.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>2. Middle-class homeowners have suffered under the
Obama administration. On taking office, Obama promised that up to 9
million of them would be protected from foreclosure but only 2.3
million have gotten assistance. Moreover, the White House never
addressed the problem of plunging house prices that left owners being
both unable to stay and to leave.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>3. Despite their slavish support for Obama, trade
unions have been treated poorly. Obama promised that he would fight
for EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act), an act that would expedite union
certification. Once in office, it was relegated to the back
burner. When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker went on a
union-busting rampage, Obama did nothing to back the protests and
limited his support for a Democrat in a recall election to a tweet.
When Chicago teachers went on strike against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s
Scott Walker-like attack, Obama stood aloof. This was to be expected,
of course, since his Secretary of Education is a proponent of charter
schools.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>4. Despite foolish expectations that Obama would be a
new FDR, Obama has functioned more like Hoover on the jobs creation
front. There has been nothing like the WPA or the CCC, despite an
aging infrastructure. And despite all the hoopla over the auto
bailout, the net result has been a downsizing of the big three auto
companies, as well as a sharp cut in benefits.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>5. Both Obama and Romney love free trade. </FONT><A
href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/14/bain_outsourcing_neither_obama_nor_romney_think_it_s_wrong_so_what_are_we_arguing_about_.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>As liberal wonk Matt Iglesias
put it</FONT></A><FONT size=4>, “And what’s more, all indications are
that Barack Obama also doesn’t think Bain was doing anything wrong. As
president he’s made no moves to make it illegal for companies to shift
production work abroad and has publicly associated himself with a wide
range of American firms—from GE to Apple and beyond—who’ve done just
that to varying extents. And we all remember what happened to Obama’s
promise to renegotiate NAFTA after taking office, right?”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>6. Obama done nothing to solve the problem of
greenhouse-gas related climate change, a point made by Al
Gore</FONT><A
href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-of-denial-20110622?page=1"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4> in a Rolling Stone
article</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. Despite the EPA’s requirement that
new (but not existing) coal-fueled plants cut their emissions by half,
there are signs that this will have little to do with reducing
greenhouse gases since coal is being replaced across the board by the
far cheaper natural gas.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>7. Natural gas extraction is being facilitated through
the use of hydrofracking, an environmentally devastating practice that
the Obama administration has accepted without qualms. In his latest
State of the Union speech, Obama’s pro-natural gas stance earned the
praise of the pro-hydrofracking Independent Oil & Gas Association.
His EPA chief Lisa Jackson told a Senate Committee that she knew of no
instances where fracking affected water, a stance that </FONT><A
href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/even_lisa_on_board_jXydpSpjiw9SZSx4ZwOARJ"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>endeared her to the
ultra-reactionary NY Post</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. Finally, he gave
TransCanada the OK to build the southern portion of its Keystone XL
tar sands pipeline in June of this year. By contrast, Jill Stein was
arrested when she was resupplying activists blockading the
pipeline.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>8. In the same month that he gave TransCanada the
green light, Obama permitted oil drilling in the Arctic. This follows
a decision in January to re-open 38 Million Acres in Gulf of Mexico to
offshore drilling. The fact that BP has given the largest chunk of its
$3.5 million campaign contributions to Obama might well have something
to do with this.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>9. Obama has supported the building of nuclear power
plants, even after Fukushima.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>10. In 2009 Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave
his personal approval for a 381-acre clear-cut in Tongass National
Forest, America’s largest stand of temperate rain forest.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>11. Last and far from least, Obama lifted the ban on
hunting gray wolves in eight northern states in 2011. Maybe he and
Sarah Palin can go shoot the beasts from a helicopter some time next
year in the spirit of collaboration between the two parties. They can
bring Chris Christie along, after making sure that the helicopter can
carry all that weight.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>12. Obama promised to close down Guantanamo but the
prison remained open even after he said in the ill-conceived Nobel
Peace Prize acceptance speech: ” I believe the United States of
America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war…That is
why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>13. When men imprisoned in Guantanamo demanded that
they be tried in a U.S. court, the case went all the way up to the
Supreme Court. On Obama’s urging, the court denied a hearing, thus
</FONT><A
href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/06/did-supreme-court-just-gut-habeas"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>leading some to assert
</FONT></A><FONT size=4>that a president with a background in
constitutional law was gutting habeas corpus.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>14. Obama maintains a secret kill list that included
American citizens. This suspension of habeas corpus not only led to
the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki—an American—but his 16 year old son who
was never charged with a crime. Robert Gibbs, Obama’s former press
secretary, defending the killing this way: “I would suggest that you
should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned
about the well being of their children.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>15. Obama’s raid on Osama bin-Laden’s house was
essentially illegal. Amnesty International described it as an
extrajudicial execution.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>16. His use of drones has led to the deaths of many
noncombatants, including a number </FONT><A
href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/10907-cover-up-of-civilian-drone-deaths-revealed-by-new-evidence"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>that have been covered
up</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. The criterion used by the White House is
that any military aged male within the target range is fair game. If
this is not the policy of a war criminal, then I do not know what
is.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>17. Many of Obama’s policies are </FONT><A
href="http://www.salon.com/2012/06/07/probing_obamas_secrecy_games/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>shrouded in
secrecy</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. When the White House leaked word
about its kill list—intended to burnish its reputation as tough on
terror—nothing happened. But when people like Bradley Manning reveal
the machinations that lead to war, he is put in solitary confinement
and faced with a lengthy prison term.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>18. Despite the hostility of Netanyahu, Israel
continues to get carte blanche from the administration. When Americans
consider the possibility of joining a flotilla to bring humanitarian
aid to Gaza, they have to worry about the threats of fines and
imprisonment </FONT><A
href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/27/obama_admin_warns_of_fines_and"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>brandished by Hillary
Clinton</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. Despite toothless remonstrations to
Israel about West Bank settlements, the U.S. </FONT><A
href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0218/If-Obama-opposes-Israeli-settlement-activity-why-did-US-veto-UN-vote"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>voted against a U.N.
resolution</FONT></A><FONT size=4> that described them as illegal.
Finally, despite American nervousness about an armed attack on Iran,
the U.S. continues to back crippling sanctions all in the name of
reducing the threat to Israel, a country that flouts international
treaties against its own stockpile of nuclear weapons.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>19. Against all evidence that its occupation of
Afghanistan has been a disaster to the Afghan people and to the
soldiers serving there, Obama pledges to “finish the job” in Nixonian
terms. Sticking to a 2014 deadline for withdrawal, he will likely step
up the use of drones as he begins to wind down troop deployments. 42
states and the District of Columbia are facing serious budget
shortfalls this year. Spending for the Afghanistan war would more than
</FONT><A
href="http://costofwar.com/publications/2011/ten-years-after-911/afghanistan-war-costs/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>make up for the
shortfalls</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. As is always the case, it is
guns trump butter.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>20. Despite all the hype about the breakthrough of
having the first African-American president, there are signs that
Obama has largely ignored the suffering of Black America. In a very
important article that appeared in the October 28<SUP>th</SUP> New
York Times, </FONT><A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/the-price-of-a-black-president.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>Columbia University’s director
of Black studies wrote</FONT></A><FONT size=4>: “Whether it ends in
2013 or 2017, the Obama presidency has already marked the decline,
rather than the pinnacle, of a political vision centered on
challenging racial inequality.” Among the findings in this article: 28
percent of African-Americans, and 37 percent of black children, are
poor (compared with 10 percent of whites and 13 percent of white
children); 13 percent of blacks are unemployed (compared with 7
percent of whites); more than 900,000 black men are in prison; blacks
experienced a sharper drop in income since 2007 than any other racial
group; black household wealth, which had been disproportionately
concentrated in housing, has hit its lowest level in decades; blacks
accounted, in 2009, for 44 percent of new H.I.V.
infections.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>21. Obama has deported </FONT><A
href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/obamas-record-high-deportations-draw-hispanic-scorn/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>twice the number of
undocumented workers</FONT></A><FONT size=4> per annum than Bush. 59
percent of Latinos disapprove of his policies but face the quandary of
voting for Romney, who complains that Obama is not deporting
enough.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>22. Obamacare has effectively preempted the only
health care option that made sense, namely a single-payer plan that
would effectively extended Medicare (but a much improved on) to all.
As Obama has said on countless occasions, this is the same plan that
Romney pushed through when he was governor of Massachusetts. It is
also the same plan that American Enterprise Institute scholar J.D.
Kleinke defended in a September 29, 2012 NYT op-ed piece titled “The
Conservative Case for Obamacare”: The rationalization and extension of
the current market is financed by the other linchpin of the law: the
mandate that we all carry health insurance, an </FONT><A
title="National Health System plan from The Heritage Foundation"
href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1989/a-national-health-system-for-america"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>idea</FONT></A><FONT size=4>
forged not by liberal social engineers at the Brookings Institution
but by conservative economists at the Heritage Foundation. The
individual mandate recognizes that millions of Americans who could buy
health insurance choose not to, because it requires trading away
today’s wants for tomorrow’s needs. The mandate is about personal
responsibility — a hallmark of conservative thought.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>23. Obama set up something called National Commission
on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that was co-chaired by a couple of
fiscal hawks, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. There are fears that
the policies favored by these two reactionaries will be implemented as
cuts in Social Security in Obama’s second term. In his debate with
Romney, Obama said, “I suspect that on Social Security, we’ve got a
somewhat similar position. Social Security is structurally sound. It’s
going to have to be tweaked the way it was by Ronald Reagan and
Speaker — Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill. But it is — the basic
structure is sound.” With the likely continuation of Bush tax cuts,
there will be pressure to cut the deficit. Between Social Security and
tax breaks for billionaires, guess which will be
sacrificed.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>24. The White House has been a pillar of support for
charter schools. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is one of the
country’s leading advocates for what amounts to the privatization of
public schools and the liquidation of the teacher’s union, one of the
few in the country that still has some backbone. The </FONT><A
href="http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/mar/07/flunking-arne-duncan/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>irrepressible Diane
Ravitch</FONT></A><FONT size=4> described Duncan this way: “Duncan
cheered when the superintendent of the Central Falls, Rhode Island,
school district threatened to fire every teacher in the town’s only
high school; the Education Secretary memorably said that Hurricane
Katrina—which wiped out public schools and broke the teachers’ union
in New Orleans—was the best thing that ever happened to the school
system in that city. Teachers are demoralized by such
statements.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>25. Finally, in the one bright spot in recent American
history of people challenging the status quo—namely the Occupy
movement—there is strong evidence that the White House conspired with
local authorities to crush it. David Lindorff </FONT><A
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/14/did-the-white-house-direct-the-police-crackdown-on-occupy/"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=4>reported for
Counterpunch</FONT></A><FONT size=4>: “A new trove of heavily redacted
documents provided by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in
response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the
Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on behalf of filmmaker
Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild makes it increasingly
evident that there was and is a nationally coordinated campaign to
disrupt and crush the Occupy Movement.”</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>None of this should be interpreted, of course, as a
preference for Romney, which would be like recommending cyanide
instead of arsenic.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4>On Tuesday I will be happily pulling the lever for
</FONT><A href="http://www.jillstein.org/" rel=nofollow
target=_blank><FONT size=4>Jill Stein</FONT></A><FONT size=4>, the
Green Party candidate for
president.</FONT></P></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV><BR>-----Inline
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