<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><div><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/08/progressive-politics-after-gaza/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/08/progressive-politics-after-gaza/</a><br></div><div>"Gaza proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, the handful of progressives in the so-called Progressive and Black Caucuses, and so on – every last one of them is elbow deep in the blood of Gazan children.</div><div>Now mid-term elections are upon us, and the contest for the presidency in 2016 is about to heat up.</div><div>These elections, like others before them, will suck up political energy that would be better expended elsewhere; and, as usual, little, if any, good will come from them.</div><div>Lesser evilism happens when elections are held; it will be no different this November or in
2016. And progressive hearts will again be set atwitter – by one or another meretricious savior.</div><div>In liberal circles, the will to believe is irrepressible. The Obama experience hasn’t stifled it; and even complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity will not overcome it.</div><div>If only there were a way to vote for “none of the above” or to make an absence count as a principled abstention. Then it would be possible to vote in good conscience, and move on. But our electoral system allows for no such thing.</div><div>And so, people will vote, or not, as they see fit; and in the voting booth, they will do what seems best (least bad) to them at the time.</div><div>This is lamentable, but it hardly matters because, in a sham democracy like ours, voting is not how justice is advanced – not in general and especially not where Israel and Palestine are concerned."</div></div></body></html>