[Peace-discuss] Why Obama has to do that...

[Tom Abram]

Well, Noam Chomsky said he was voting for Cynthia McKinney, so that's
great to hear from you, Jen.

Tom

On 11/2/08, Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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>
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> Noam Chomsky:".....On the other hand, there is nothing immoral about voting
> for the lesser of two evils. In a powerful system like ours, small changes
> can lead to big consequences."
>
> Mort: "If only Carl were as equally nuanced and careful  as his professed
> intellectual mentor! He is in my view despoiling this list serve with
> vitriolic rants."
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>
> I agree with Noam Chomsky and Mort Brussel.
>  --Jenifer
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> --- On Sun, 11/2/08, Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu> wrote:
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> From: Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Why Obama has to do that...
> To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> Cc: "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> Date: Sunday, November 2, 2008, 11:31 AM
>
>
> The desperation of Republicans (e.g., by the local N-G) as the electoral
> campaign winds down is paralleled by this noxious piece, which ends up
> expressing no alarm (even hoping for?) at a MaCain-Palin presidency. If only
> Carl read more carefully what his mentor Chomsky has expressed recently in
> Z-Magazine, Nov., 2008:
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> David Barsamian asks:
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> …So, realistically, whichever candidate is elected, can a president make a
> difference?
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> NC:  Oh, yes. Presidents make differences. In fact, over time there are
> systematic differences between Republicans and Democrats. So, for example,
> if you look over a long stretch, fairly consistently, when there is a
> Democratic president, there is a level of benefits for the majority of the
> population. Wages are a little better, benefits are a little better, for the
> large majority. When the Republicans are in office, it's the other way
> around. There are benefits, but for the super rich. The same is true for
> civil rights and other things. It's a consistent difference, even though
> they're within a narrow spectrum.
> The same is true in international affairs…  I don't doubt that there would
> be some difference between an Obama and a McCain presidency. The McCain
> presidency you can't predict very well because he's a loose cannon. It could
> be pretty threatening.
>
>
>
> DB: What do you think of the lessor of two evils argument?
>
>
> NC: It depends whether you care about human beings and their fate. If you
> careabout human beings and their fate, you will support the lessor of two
> evils, not mechanically, because there are other considerations. For
> example, there could be an argument for a protest vote if it were a step
> towards building a significant alternative to the choice between two
> factions of the business party, both of them to the right of the population
> on most issues. If there were such an alternative, there could be an
> argument for not voting or for voting for the third alternative. But it's a
> delicate judgement. On the other hand, there is nothing immoral about voting
> for the lesser of two evils. In a powerful system like ours, small changes
> can lead to big consequences.
> …
>
>
> If only Carl were as equally nuanced and careful  as his professed
>  intellectual mentor! He is in my view despoiling this list serve with
> vitriolic rants.
>
>
>
>
>
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> On Nov 2, 2008, at 12:50 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
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>
> Look, gang, let's get one argument out of the way up front.  As soon as The
> One is elected President, there are going to be a lot of self-styled
> activists after him NOT to do the things that he's promised to do -- like
> killing people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, continuing the occupation of
> Iraq, delivering money to Wall Street, and paying off insurance companies
> for a health program that won't even cover everybody (while leaving most
> people subject to their employers in order to get it).  The crazy leftist
> filmmaker Michael Moore (while not of course really criticizing The One)
> actually said that he hoped Obama would break his campaign promises!
>
>
> Now we've gotta understand why Obama can't do that.  First of all, it would
> be dishonest.  He's campaigned all along as the anti-war candidate who would
> expand the war and the military and kill more people in the Middle East --
> including places where the Bush administration is just taking baby-steps in
> killing, like Pakistan.  He's the candidate of "ordinary people" who lobbied
> for the Wall Street bailout while explicitly excluding help to people losing
> their homes. And he's the advocate for health care who has a plan that will
> provide less coverage than the plan that Republican Mitt Romney put in place
> when he was governor of Massachusetts.  Obama's got to pay off (so to speak)
> on these promises.
>
>
> But the second reason is even more important.  Think about what the
> Republicans are going to do in four years.  They're going to nominate
> someone for President who will be even WORSE than John McCain -- someone
> like Sarah Palin, who's disgusting because she doesn't even have the right
> background (the progressives say "class") to be a government official. (Do
> you know she barely graduated from any college at all?!)  Think about how
> terrible it would be if someone like THAT became president.
>
>
> So, you see, of course Obama doesn't want to do that killing and looting
> that his campaign promises commit him to, but once he gets into office, he's
> gotta do that -- TO GET RE-ELECTED!
>
>
> --CGE
>
>
> PS--And please don't bother me with any more talk about how three-quarters
> of the population want the Mideast war to end, don't want the banks to be
> paid off, and do want real healthcare for everybody without paying more to
> insurance companies.  Those are NOT the people Obama's working for.  They're
> just the people he promised that he could bring around to the interests of
> those whom he is working for.  And with John McCain's help, he's done it --
> a little bit, for the moment...
>
>
> ###
>
>
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