By David Swanson, War Is A Crime [3] Tuesday 12 April 2011
The Great Promiser at work. Every election round offers worse and worse "choices".
In an electoral system corrupted by money, media, and parties, the US people are offered a choice every four years between two hideously awful candidates for an office that increasingly resembles an imperial throne. And increasingly the primary motivation of voters is to oppose the candidate they believe is the greater evil.
Thus, we chose Obama over McCain in 2008. But Obama in 2008, as the lesser of the two evil candidates, was arguably a greater evil than George W. Bush had been four or eight years earlier, or Bob Dole 12 years back, or certainly Bush senior 16 years before. None of those previous candidates campaigned on as militaristic, corporatist, plutocratic or power-abusing a platform as Obama did in 2008. Sure, he’s worse [4] in office than his campaign rhetoric suggested, and so were they. But, whether you compare campaign promises to campaign promises or actual performance to actual performance, we are on a downward slide that continues whether or not we elect the lesser evil candidates. Continue reading »
