BRATTLEBORO — I have been told that if I don't vote for Hillary Clinton, a person whose policies, character, and likely governing style I detest, then I am:
1. Enabling fascism,
2. Indifferent to the needs of vulnerable groups like minorities, women, LGBTQ, et al.,
3. Selfish, irresponsible, and having a tantrum,
4. Showing my white privilege,
5. An assh-,
6. Insults, guilt trips, and other verbal slams.
I'm told that voting for a third party is a “luxury” when we're faced with the prospect of the scary man.
I'm told that when the apocalypse comes, it'll all the fault of those of us who vote what our conscience tells us.
So try this on.
* * *
I've been a progressive/liberal/socialist/far lefty my entire life. I have worked on, and continue to work on, the many issues that other progressives hold dear. Most recently, I've worked to end the inequities that lead to homelessness and poverty. (I'm looking at you, Rapacious Capitalism.)
My voting life began in 1980 when I voted for Rep. John Anderson over Jimmy Carter and that unthinkably awful man, Ronald Reagan. I spent a lot of time too disgusted by two-party politics to vote, so I skipped the Clinton years and focused on local elections. In 2000, with the threat of the awfulness of Bush/Cheney, I voted for the Democratic tickets.
Then, in 2008, I felt a sudden lift from a candidate who talked about hope, equity, compassion, and similar themes. I was also thrilled to think that an African-American person could be elected president in this traditionally race-slanted culture.
His resume wasn't very long, and he was pretty untested, but after eight years of hell on earth with the War Criminal Administration, I got behind Barack Obama.
On election night, I broadcasted the results live on my radio talk show, and all of us in the room literally wept when Obama clinched the victory. My hope was alive, and my optimism rekindled.
A few short weeks later, when asked if he'd be pursuing an investigation into his predecessors for their illegal war, torture, and war crimes, he famously said he had “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”
That's when I started to get off the Obama train.
Soon enough, there were more offensive choices. Despite how Wall Street criminals destroyed the economy and netted nifty profits plus bonuses, the Obama justice department didn't feel compelled to investigate or prosecute a single one of them.
Add to that a failure by a former constitutional law professor to prosecute or even fire a single person for what the CIA called - definitively - torture. Torture, people.
And much of this malfeasance culminated in a Nobel Peace Prize winner dropping drone bombs on innocent people in countries with which we are not formally at war (with 90 percent of the victims not the intended target).
Since those issues, among others, were extremely offensive to me, and well outside my moral constraints, I could not vote for him. Instead, I gave my vote to Jill Stein and the Green Party, whose policies more closely matched my values, in the hope that it could help strengthen a much-needed third party.
* * *
Now here we are, four years later, and again the Democratic nominee comes nowhere near my values and is wholly offensive to me. I will again give my vote to Jill Stein.
Here's the question: Is it reasonable for me to claim that all of those who voted for Obama in 2012:
1. Support drone murder in Yemen and Pakistan?
2. Support torture?
3. Support the crimes of Wall Street?
4. Support air strikes on Syria that kill civilians?
5. Don't care about the needs of Syrians, Yemenis, or Pakistanis?
6. Support the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will disproportionately hurt the poor?
So when I'm told that I'm an awful person, or not thinking clearly, or not moral, or don't care about the needs of the vulnerable, I throw it back.
Where the hell was all the outrage about rapacious, immoral, and lethal behavior when it was actually happening under the smiling, likable president?
Where were you when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was promoting the bombing of Libya and Syria and talking about “wiping Iran off the map”?
Where was all your guilt-tripping and Facebook activism when what happened at Guantánamo - the same Guantánamo that candidate Obama promised to close - was clearly called torture? Is torture not awful enough to get your outrage?
Where were all the name callers and all the we've-got-to-stop-this-awful-man-or-people-will-die! screamers when people were and are actually dying?
* * *
To all of you who would condemn me and others who simply cannot advocate or embolden any ruthless patriarchal war makers: I say that unless you've been working to counter some of the offenses of the U.S. government and its many, many lethal ways, then you've got no moral position from which to condemn anyone.
I appreciate that Donald Trump is a far cry more offensive and damaging than Obama or Clinton. But if taking a moral stand is only a matter of degree and the lethal, torturous, and bankster-enabling behaviors of the last eight years are OK by you, then you lose that argument.
You also lose any moral grounds to condemn me, call me names, or otherwise cajole me and others into supporting a candidate who is as offensive as Obama and nearly as offensive as Trump.
And now with clear evidence that the Democratic National Committee steered the primary process to maximize the likelihood of a Clinton coronation, that's where your ire can go.
Not at me.
* * *
This country lost its way decades ago with the advent of Ronald Reagan's delusion and disregard for actual needs. So I reject all claims that this election cycle is the one that will determine a dark future.
That dark future is already here, and it has been getting progressively worse over the last 30 years.
Ask the victims of torture.
Ask the victims of our bombings.
Ask the homeless people who struggle to stay alive while billionaires spend billions to maintain “power.”
Ask the many who will die under the bombs of a war hawk like Clinton, who is many degrees more violent than Obama.
I will never vote for “evil” again. I will never vote tactically again.
And just as no one has the right to tell me what to wear, which religion to follow, or what food to eat, no one has the right to tell me how to vote.