The Consciousness of Guilt Is It Immoral to Vote for Obama? by MIKE WHITNEY

OCTOBER 13, 2011

I don’t like mixing politics with morality, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. What I mean is this: how can anyone cast a ballot for a man who they know will continue to kill people in other countries merely to advance US policy objectives? That’s the question people need to ask themselves.

Under normal circumstances, I can understand the “lesser of two evils” theory of voting, just as I can understand why people would think that Obama would be better president than his GOP opponent. But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they? After all, we’re not just talking about which candidate might be more inclined to protect Social Security or Medicare. We’re talking life and death. The question is whether one is willing to throw their support behind a policy that kills people in exchange for the presumed protection of Social Security?That’s a pretty cynical calculation.

Knowing what we know now, we can say with 100% certainty that Obama will continue killing people wherever he deploys the US military, the US intelligence services and US drones. How can anyone in good conscience sign on to that type of thing?

Now I know people will say,”If you don’t vote for Obama, you’re handing the White House and our children’s future over to crackpots and extremists”.

This is a very persuasive argument, but it’s also misleading. The real issue is whether one is willing to support the administration’s policies, policies that we all know will continue to kill defenseless women and children wherever the US is involved.

At present, there’s only one antiwar candidate on the ballot, Ron Paul. And while I bitterly disagree with him on economic and social matters, these issues pale in comparison to America’s homicidal foreign policy. If the balloting were held today, I would vote for Paul in a heartbeat and I would try to convince others to do the same.

As for those who choose to vote for Obama; that’s fine, only, please, don’t pretend you don’t know what the consequences will be.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com