It is urgently important to prevent a Republican administration under Romney/Ryan from taking office in January 2013.
The election is now just weeks away, and I want to urge those whose values are generally in line with mine — progressives, especially activists — to make this goal one of your priorities during this period.
Un colega activista me dijo recientemente: "He oído que estás apoyando a Obama".
Me sobresalté y me ofendí. “¿Apoyando a Obama? Me?! ”
"No pierdo ninguna oportunidad públicamente", le dije enojado, para identificar a Obama como una herramienta de Wall Street, un hombre que ha despenalizado la tortura y sigue siendo cómplice de ella, un asesino con drones, alguien que ha lanzado una guerra inconstitucional, apoya el secuestro y la duración indefinida. detención sin juicio y ha procesado a más denunciantes como yo que todos los presidentes anteriores juntos. “¿Llamarías a eso ¿apoyo?"
Mi amigo dijo: "Pero en Democracy Now you urged people in swing states to vote for him! How could you say that? I don’t live in a swing state, but I will not and could not vote for Obama under any circumstances.”
Mi respuesta fue: una administración Romney/Ryan no sería mejor —ni diferente— en ninguno de los delitos graves que acabo de mencionar ni en ninguna otra cosa, y sería mucho peor, incluso catastróficamente peor, sobre una serie de otras cuestiones importantes: atacar a Irán, nombramientos de la Corte Suprema, la economía, los derechos reproductivos de las mujeres, la cobertura sanitaria, la red de seguridad, el cambio climático, la energía verde, el medio ambiente.
I told him: “I don’t ‘support Obama.’ I oppose the current Republican Party. This is not a contest between Barack Obama and a progressive candidate. The voters in a handful or a dozen close-fought swing states are going to determine whether Mitt Romney y Paul Ryan van a ejercer un gran poder político durante cuatro, tal vez ocho años, o no."
Como dijo recientemente Noam Chomsky: “La organización republicana actual es extremadamente peligrosa, no sólo para este país, sino para el mundo. Vale la pena hacer algún esfuerzo para impedir su ascenso al poder, sin sembrar ilusiones sobre las alternativas demócratas”.
Siguiendo esa lógica, le dijo a un entrevistador lo que mi amigo me escuchó decirle a Amy Goodman: “Si yo fuera una persona en un estado indeciso, votaría contra Romney/Ryan, lo que significa votar por Obama porque no hay otra opción”. .”
The election is at this moment a toss-up. That means this is one of the uncommon occasions when we progressives — a small minority of the electorate — could actually have a significant influence on the outcome of a national election, swinging it one way or the other.
El , solamente La manera que tienen los progresistas y demócratas de bloquear a Romney de su cargo, en esta fecha, es persuadir a suficientes personas en los estados indecisos para que voten por Obama: not stay home, or vote for someone else. And that has to include, in those states, progressives and disillusioned liberals who are at this moment inclined not to vote at all or to vote for a third-party candidate (because like me they’ve been not just disappointed but disgusted and enraged by much of what Obama has done in the last four years and will probably keep doing).
Hay que persuadirlos para que voten, y para que voten en un estado campo de batalla por Obama y no por nadie más. a pesar de the terrible flaws of the less-bad candidate, the incumbent. That’s not easy. As I see it, that’s precisely the “effort” Noam is referring to as worth expending ahora to prevent the Republicans’ rise to power. And it will take progressives — some of you reading this, I hope — to make that effort of persuasion effectively.
It will take someone these disheartened progressives and liberals will listen to. Someone manifestly without illusions about the Democrats, someone who sees what they see when they look at the president these days: but who can also see through candidates Romney or Ryan on the split-screen, and keep their real, disastrous policies in focus.
It’s true that the differences between the major parties are not nearly as large as they and their candidates claim, let alone what we would want. It’s even fair to use Gore Vidal’s metaphor that they form two wings (“two right wings” as some have put it) of a single party, the Property or Plutocracy Party, or as Justin Raimondo says, the War Party.
Aún así, la realidad política es que hay en dos alas distinguibles, y uno es ciertamente incluso peor que el otro, actualmente mucho peor en general. Negar o actuar descuidando esa realidad sólo sirve para la victoria posiblemente inminente, aunque actualmente evitable, de lo peor.
El mantra tradicional de terceros, "Hay no diferencia significativa entre los partidos principales” equivale a decir: "Los republicanos no son peores en general.” And eso es absurdo. It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended. It’s crazily divorced from present reality.
And it’s not at all harmless to be propagating that absurd falsehood. It has the effect of encouraging progressives even in battleground states to refrain from voting or to vote in a close election for someone other than Obama, and more importantly, to influence others to act likewise. That’s an effect that serves no one but the Republicans, and ultimately the 1%.
It’s not merely understandable, it’s entirely appropriate to be enraged at Barack Obama. As I am. He has often acted outrageously, not merely timidly or “disappointingly.” If impeachment were politically imaginable on constitutional grounds, he’s earned it (like George W. Bush, and many of his predecessors!) It is entirely human to want to punish him, not to “reward” him with another term or a vote that might be taken to express trust, hope or approval.
But rage is not generally conducive to clear thinking. And it often gets worked out against innocent victims, as would be the case here domestically, if refusals to vote for him resulted in Romney’s taking key battleground states that decide the outcome of this election.
To punish Obama in this particular way, on Election Day — by depriving him of votes in swing states and hence of office in favor of Romney and Ryan — would punish most of all the poor and marginal in society, and workers and middle class as well: not only in the U.S. but worldwide in terms of the economy (I believe the Republicans could still convert this recession to a Great Depression), the environment and climate change. It could well lead to war with Iran (which Obama has been creditably resisting, against pressure from within his own party). And it would spell, via Supreme Court appointments, the end of Roe v. Wade and of the occasional five to four decisions in favor of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The reelection of Barack Obama, in itself, is not going to bring serious progressive change, end militarism and empire, or restore the Constitution and the rule of law. That’s for us and the rest of the people to bring about after this election and in the rest of our lives — through organizing, building movements and agitating.
In the eight to twelve close-fought states — especially Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, but also Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — for any progressive to encourage fellow progressives and others in those states to vote for a third-party candidate is, I would say, to be complicit in facilitating the election of Romney and Ryan, with all its consequences.
Pensar que eso es un llamado a la gente de los estados indecisos a “votar en conciencia” es, creo, un consejo peligrosamente engañoso. Le diría a un progresista que si su conciencia le dice el día de las elecciones que vote por alguien que no sea Obama en un estado en disputa, necesita una segunda opinión. Tu conciencia te está dando malos consejos.
A menudo cito una frase de Thoreau que tuvo un gran impacto para mí: “Emite todo tu voto: no sólo una tira de papel, sino toda tu influencia”. En ese ensayo se refería a la desobediencia civil o, como él mismo la tituló, “Resistencia a la autoridad civil”.
Todavía significa eso para mí. Pero este es un año en el que para las personas que piensan como yo (y que, a diferencia de mí, viven en estados conflictivos), lanzar una tira de papel también es importante. Usar toda tu influencia este mes para lograr que otros hagan eso, con el mejor efecto, es aún más importante.
Eso significa para los progresistas en las próximas semanas: en adición a los mítines, manifestaciones, peticiones, lobbying (en gran medida contra las políticas o futuras políticas del presidente Obama, incluido el presupuesto de austeridad el próximo mes), la construcción de movimientos y la desobediencia civil que se necesitan durante todo el año y todos los años (usando la propia voz y el propio correo electrónico). correos electrónicos, artículos de opinión y redes sociales para alentar a los ciudadanos de los estados indecisos a votar en contra de una victoria de Romney votando por la única alternativa real, Barack Obama.
Daniel Ellsberg is a former State and Defense Department official who has been arrested for acts of non-violent civil disobedience over eighty times, initially for copying and releasing the top secret Pentagon Papers, for which he faced 115 years in prison. Living in a non-swing state, he does not intend to vote for President Obama.
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