Cav's Place

With the United States presidential election approaching, the eyes of the world tend to turn in the direction of US politics even more than usual, with every person who at least occasionally tends to use their brain to think a little being very worried about the possibility of the Republicans returning to power. However, the vast majority of those people, no matter where they’re from, are unfortunately still stuck on the idea that only two parties exist in the US, so their opposition to Romney directly translates into support for Obama even though that will, at best, only reduce the damage while preserving the status quo and making it even harder for any real solutions to be found in the future.
What this means is that, since what happens in the US has a major impact on the whole world, we must all look towards the other candidates, or at least towards those who have attained ballot access in states controlling at least the 270 electoral votes required to win. And since, so far, those are Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) and Jill Stein (Green Party), with Virgil Goode (Constitution Party) also closing in on the threshold, it’s quite clear that the one to watch, support and promote as much as possible is Jill.

Of course, since we’re talking about the Green candidate, the environment is a top priority, which puts Jill in an unique position. Granted that even her plans are still very far from what’d truly need to be done, but the others at most mention the issue, pay some lip service or entertain an idea or two, generally trying to see how little can they get by with, what’s the lowest number of significant changes and what are the lowest costs associated with simply getting through the next few years, their main interests clearly lying elsewhere. Obama’s energy strategy is a clear example of that, seeing as it includes all types of energy sources and claims to make some “green” improvements for each even though there can be nothing environmentally-friendly about fossil fuels, be they oil, coal or natural gas, and nuclear energy carries too many risks, particularly related to the resulting waste, to still be a viable energy source for the future.
However, that’s far from the only thing setting her apart, because another glance over the candidates will make it immediately obvious that Jill is the only one to truly tackle the issues having to do with rights and freedoms, even Johnson, whose party should theoretically be all in when it comes to such matters, falling far behind. You may say that, at least as far as promises go, Obama makes a reasonable effort for someone coming from a mainstream party, but that’s no excuse and he’s still, as one would expect, even behind Johnson on such matters, so he’s absolutely not a valid choice for anyone who truly cares about these issues. Worse, his actions tend to make it even worse, because he has proven to crack under the pressure created by the Republicans and the interest groups associated with them, accepting to make so many moves against rights and freedoms that one analysis goes as far as to say that “as outrageous as it may appear, civil libertarians and human rights supporters would have actually fared better under a Republican administration” due to the fact that at least then there’d have been a strong opposition to such a turn of events.

You might have noticed that I made no mention of economic issues so far, and that’s simply because I’m aiming for an entirely different type of economy and therefore am largely against any and all economic plans and promises put forward by any candidate, party or group which is still trying to find a way to make the current system work again, albeit with some changes. You can see some proof of that by glancing over my results on the VoteMatch test on OnTheIssues.org, where I have under 50% with all candidates, whether they’re still in the race of have withdrawn at some point. (Incidentally, a glance there will serve to point out the difference between Jill and all the others on social issues as well.)
Still, she has some interesting ideas here as well, if only for the dying years of this terribly outdated system. As such, anyone who is interested in the economy, which unfortunately seems to include nearly everyone, may also want to take a look and compare her projects and promises with those of the other candidates. Personally, for the reason stated above, I have only given a passing glance to a part of those proposals, completely skipping over others, but from what little I saw I can say with a fair amount of confidence that “the 99%” will find plenty of things to like in there.

True, even ignoring the economic aspects, there are also things I disagree with, such as her desire to largely take away people’s right to own and carry firearms, which actually goes very much against those rights and freedoms that she’s otherwise fighting for. Much more notably, however, I’m bothered by her demands to find diplomatic solutions to everything and to make the United States just one member of the international community instead of the world’s cop at a time when diplomacy proves time and time again that it’s unable to accomplish anything meaningful and, if anything, certain countries need to be watched and, if need be, set straight by even bigger and more vicious cops, by any means necessary.
Granted that the United States is one of the world’s problems from that point of view, but it’s certainly not at the top of the list, those positions being reserved for China, Russia and perhaps, if for somewhat different reasons, North Korea, followed by a few other notable countries that wield a significant regional influence in their part of the world and behave in increasingly worrying ways. So what’s needed is to take the power of directing the attention of the world’s biggest cop away from those who have so far been making use of it to further their own agendas and then, instead of weakening or even chaining it, make use of that immense force to fix what needs fixing. Nobody should assume that others will eventually sort things out on their own, because they haven’t so far and almost certainly won’t in the future either.

Still, in spite of the issues mentioned above, the good far outweighs the bad and there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s the only candidate who may actually be worth supporting this time around. Yes, Obama’s far less undesirable than Romney, but that doesn’t make him a desirable or even an acceptable solution. To quote Jill, when she was asked whether there’s any difference between the Republicans and the Democrats: “You might look at one party as a rapidly sinking ship and say we’re going to vote for the other guy because the ship’s not going down so fast. We don’t like him but he’s not sinking the ship so fast. But the real question is, if both of those ships are heading for the bottom of the ocean, do you want to be on either of them? No. There’s no question about where those ships are heading.”
The problem is this belief that there are only two possible choices, which may in fact be more similar than they’d like the people to believe. By voting for some other candidate, any other candidate, people would prove this to be wrong and, if that other candidate will get the 5% required to obtain federal funding, break the system, finally allowing the United States to have a proper third party in the near future, which would be the first step towards finding true solutions. And if that vote can be for a person who actually offers at least some solutions even now, then all the more reason to go there and give her your vote if you are an US citizen, or to support her in whatever way you can if you’re simply a citizen of the world, aware of the fact that US politics affect all of us.
Many will say that it’s at best pointless, seeing as she couldn’t possibly get any significant amount of votes, but that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people don’t vote for someone because that person seems to have too few supporters, they’ll seem to have even fewer the next time around and anyone who may think of supporting them will be even more disheartened. If, however, a certain number of people choose to ignore the “useful vote” concept and actually state their convictions through their votes, even if they’ll only be a small minority, that minority will be bigger than it’d have been without them, so the visible support for the candidate or the ideology in question will increase and it’ll become somewhat less difficult to persuade even more people to follow suit in the future.

Of course, there is also the argument that the danger of the Republicans winning is too great and voting for Jill instead of Obama may let that happen, since obviously someone who as much as considers voting for the Greens would have otherwise voted for the Democrats, if they’d have voted at all. And I won’t deny that such a situation is possible, and in fact it probably happened back in 2000, but in that case I’ll simply refer you to the sinking ships analogy. Or, if you want it put differently, if you’re lying on the ground and bleeding to death, you won’t exactly feel any better if somebody only kicks dust into your eyes, also hitting you in the process, instead of shooting you again in the stomach. Sure, the dust probably won’t keep your eyes closed for long and you may get lucky enough for the kick to not cause any additional lasting damage, but it nevertheless makes it harder to find someone who can actually heal your wounds in time and unless you manage that you’re dead anyway, so you take whatever risks you have to take, including trying to crawl past the one you know will shoot you again if you’re spotted, to look for that person.
Plus that, to also refer you again to the Political Compass analysis which I also mentioned above, if we will end up in the worst case scenario and Romney will somehow win, those on the other side of the barricades may be able to regroup and come back stronger, keeping the Republicans and all others who share their utterly idiotic worldview in check even better than they do now, when they’re spread so thin trying to weather their attacks on all fronts. After all, someone who excels in evil may generate such a powerful backlash that the end result will actually be a positive one, while one who’s somewhere in the middle tends to generate nothing but apathy.