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qosI very rarely post about politics here. I figure all my friends have their own convictions and I'm not interested in lecturing anyone to change their position. However, I am very afraid of how much worse things in our country -- and the world -- could get if McCain wins (and Palin is within a heartbeat of the presidency).
Whatever reason a liberal may have for not wanting to vote for Obama, this fact remains: either Obama or McCain will be the next president of the United States. And that president is going to have a dramatic impact on how soon we can end the war in Iraq, whether or not our civil liberties are going to continue to be eroded, whether or not women retain the right to choose and GLBT people will be treated equally under the law, whether or not separation of church and state means anything, whether or not the big oil companies will be priveleged over the environmental future of our planet, and whether corporations like Halliburton continue to grow fat on wars that drag on without a meaningful end in sight.
The time to work for radical change, to improve the system, to promote third party candidates, is before the major party candidates have monopolized the political landscape. There has to be time for excitement to build, for mindshare to be won. As unfortunate as it is, once the electoral juggernaut has reached a certain level of speed and momentum, it's simply not possible for anyone else to jump on in a meaningful way.
There may well be third party candidates who are both qualified to be president and who would bring an even better set of values and policies to the White House than Obama. But there is simply no way that's going to happen now. And every vote for a third party candidate in this election makes it that much more likely that McCain and Palin will be running our country for the next four years.
I don't claim that Obama is the second coming. However, I do believe that his leadership will lead our country and the world in a better direction than McCain will.
Remember how sick we felt four years ago as we watched Bush win an election we were sure he was going to lose? How much different would our country be now if he hadn't won? How many lives saved? How many freedoms still intact? If everyone who'd talked about how much they wanted Bush out had gone to the polls and voted for Kerry instead, where would we be now?
What kind of country and world do you want to be living in four years from now?
Whatever reason a liberal may have for not wanting to vote for Obama, this fact remains: either Obama or McCain will be the next president of the United States. And that president is going to have a dramatic impact on how soon we can end the war in Iraq, whether or not our civil liberties are going to continue to be eroded, whether or not women retain the right to choose and GLBT people will be treated equally under the law, whether or not separation of church and state means anything, whether or not the big oil companies will be priveleged over the environmental future of our planet, and whether corporations like Halliburton continue to grow fat on wars that drag on without a meaningful end in sight.
The time to work for radical change, to improve the system, to promote third party candidates, is before the major party candidates have monopolized the political landscape. There has to be time for excitement to build, for mindshare to be won. As unfortunate as it is, once the electoral juggernaut has reached a certain level of speed and momentum, it's simply not possible for anyone else to jump on in a meaningful way.
There may well be third party candidates who are both qualified to be president and who would bring an even better set of values and policies to the White House than Obama. But there is simply no way that's going to happen now. And every vote for a third party candidate in this election makes it that much more likely that McCain and Palin will be running our country for the next four years.
I don't claim that Obama is the second coming. However, I do believe that his leadership will lead our country and the world in a better direction than McCain will.
Remember how sick we felt four years ago as we watched Bush win an election we were sure he was going to lose? How much different would our country be now if he hadn't won? How many lives saved? How many freedoms still intact? If everyone who'd talked about how much they wanted Bush out had gone to the polls and voted for Kerry instead, where would we be now?
What kind of country and world do you want to be living in four years from now?
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-20 05:00 pm (UTC)I had a really hard time posting this.
I don't like the feeling that politics could cause rifts between friends and me. I know that my friends who feel differently about this have very strong feelings indeed, and have invested a lot of thought into their positions.
But I would feel cowardly if I failed to speak out on something I feel so strongly about.