Do not vote for lesser of two evils
If you intend to vote for Barack Obama against Mitt Romney
because he is the lesser of two evils, read this article
and think again:
Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama
by Conor Friedersdorf in
The Atlantic, Sep 26 2012
The case against casting a ballot for the president
-- even if you think he's better than Mitt Romney
Some of the reasons given are (quoting directly):
-
Obama terrorizes innocent Pakistanis on an almost daily basis.
The drone war he is waging in North Waziristan isn't "precise"
or "surgical" as he would have Americans believe.
It kills hundreds of innocents, including children.
-
Obama established one of the most reckless precedents imaginable:
that any president can secretly order and oversee the
extrajudicial killing of American citizens.
-
Obama has done more than any modern executive to wage war on
whistleblowers. In fact, under Obama, Bush-era lawbreakers, including
literal torturers, have been subject to fewer and less draconian attempts
at punishing them than some of the people who conscientiously came
forward to report on their misdeeds.
[This contrasts with the fact that in 2008, candidate Obama campaigned
in defense of whistleblowers.]
For details about the first point see,
The Stanford/NYU Report:
Living Under Drones
Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians
From US Drone Practices in Pakistan.
In addition to a nice executive summary, there is a pointer to the
full 182 page report
which has all the gory details.
Also
Glenn Greenwald
has a nice blog post
summarizing some of the more important parts of the report.
In addition to the above reasons I would add that Obama supports
warrantless spying on Americans. When Obama was seeking the
Democratic nomination 4 years ago, he vowed to filibuster any
bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications
companies that were found to be guilty of illegally spying on
Americans. But once he secured the nomination, instead of
filibustering the bill he voted in favor of it! And earlier
this year the Obama administration pushed for the passage of
the bill extending the FISA amendments passed in 2008.