Obama, Romney and Stein

Dear Mr. President,

Here’s the conundrum we face. “If you vote for the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, you vote for a man who takes foreign policy and economic advice from the same people who advised Bush-Cheney. You vote for a man beholden to those who support vicious legislation against women, the uninsured, the undocumented, and the poor. If you vote for the Democratic candidate, President Barack Obama, you vote for a man who presides over unprecedented warrantless surveillance and a Patriot Act on steroids. You vote for a man who claims the right to arrest you without warrants, detain you without trial, and, if he feels like it, personally order your assassination without judicial or congressional oversight of any kind. (Michael Ventura, Letters at 3AM, Austin Chronicle November 2, 2012, http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2012-11-02/letters-at-3am-things-like-that/) We the People have brought this on ourselves by the choices made and the injustices accepted for decades. But you bear much responsibility, too, Mr. President, because you lied and presented yourself as an agent of change which you weren’t. We believed your gauzy promises of Hope and Change but you continued and expanded Bush’s policies and you and Mitt will no doubt continue the disastrous course we’re on. I want no part of that; it is morally indefensible to vote for either of you and the ongoing assault on humanity and the environment. Once again I’ll vote for a policy change rather than a personality change and that’s why I’m voting for Jill Stein, a viable federally recognized candidate who’s on the ballot in 43states and received federal matching campaign funds. The Republicrats have done an effective job of muzzling her, made sure she couldn’t participate or even attend any of the presidential debates (during the last one, she was arrested and shackled to a chair in a police warehouse for 8 hours while you and Mitt “debated” at Hofstra University). And the Republicrats are so good at silencing the opposition, that Jill Stein cannot get press coverage by the mainstream media even when she’s arrested for protesting illegal bank foreclosures or the Keystone XL pipeline (imagine if it were you protesting!). And so, Mr. President, I refuse to throw my vote away on you or Mitt. Building a strong opposition movement is the only moral and sane choice. I’m voting for a change to the disastrous policies of the establishment and the 1%. I’m voting for Jill Stein and the Green New Deal!