Yesterday I found myself listening, on my car radio, to someone from Nader’s campaign. This person was attempting to refute the various criticisms we’ve all heard so many times. It made me feel as though someone was trying to work their well-chewed gum ever deeper into my ears, and reminded me all too thoroughly of why I think of myself as centrist.
The idea that Kerry and Bush are merely two sides of the same bad coin is both ludicrous and all too potentially tragic.
At the risk of making him permanently self-conscious, I’m going to quote Bravus again, because he put this, yesterday, so much more tidily than I’ve yet been able to put it:
“I think I’ve said before that usually I have a fair bit of sympathy for the ‘they’re all as bad as each other, there’s no real difference’ argument. I really, honestly think that’s crap, this time around. Bush is heading for an undemocratic combination theocracy/oligarchy in unprecedented ways. The Republican party has been hijacked by extremists. Mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats might not have a lot of characteristics that are different, but these guys (Bush/Cheney/Rove) differ from both groups in their radicalism. A vote for them – or even a vote that’s not against them – is qualitatively different, I would argue, than any vote cast in the US in recent memory.”
This isn’t the election in which to make the quixotic but satisfying point that you’d really rather vote Green, or the quixotic but satisfying point that you’d really rather not have to vote for any more white men in tight blue suits at al
…excerpt from: William Gibson’s blog