While You Were Cheering For Obama and Biden, This Happened…
by Yvette Carnell
In a plastic society, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s real. It’s comfy to begin to believe that Romney and Obama are polar opposites, but the problem is that the two men are more alike than different
. Is President Obama marginally better than Romney? Eh… somewhat..yes. And yes, that may actually mean something. That marginal difference may benefit us by buying us all a little time to prepare ourselves for the domestic cuts coming down the pike. It may give us time to breathe new life into Occupy Wall St. Those are real possibilities. So if you want to vote to reelect Obama, go ahead, I won’t stop you. But don’t pretend anymore. Enough with the idolatry.
Here are just a few things that happened while we were all hand wringing over how bad Obama crashed and burned during last week’s debates:
..while you dutifully dissected and endlessly evaluated, across the land of the free, 2,660 children were born into poverty, the human prison population grew by 214, and 1,878 women were raped.
…while you cultivated a (false) sense of superiority over Romney voters, across the globe, about 40,000 human beings starved to death and 30,000 children under the age of five died from preventable causes.
…while you rationalized, apologized for, or simply ignored President Kill List’s ever-expanding criminal agenda, 54 percent of your tax dollars continued to be funneled into an international terror enterprise known as the U.S. Department of Defense,a.k.a. the planet’s #1 polluter.
So what should you do politically? Which way forward? My takeaway: Either you 1) immerse yourself fully within the political system by doing such things as working to create a Constitutional Amendment to ban money in politics, working to elect third party candidates, etc or you 2) totally divest from the political system. Turn away and never look back. There are no in betweens.
After this election, promise yourselves that you will no longer vote for the “lesser of two evils” or just worry about politics when November rolls around. That’s lazy. Showing up for a real fight entails a lot more than showing up at a voting booth after work and pushing a name on a computer screen. And no matter who wins on Nov. 6th, it’s still time to get to work. November 7th is the day that the real work begins.
Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer turned writer. She is currently an editor and contributor to Yourblackworld. You can reach Yvette via Twitter @YvetteDC or on Facebook.
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>>>So what should you do politically? Which way forward? My takeaway: Either you 1) immerse yourself fully within the political system by doing such things as working to create a Constitutional Amendment to ban money in politics, working to elect third party candidates, etc or you 2) totally divest from the political system. Turn away and never look back. There are no in betweens.<<<
This is truly the choice. I'm opting for 2 for right now. I don't begrudge the folks opting for # 1 and perhaps they'll be successful, but I prefer not to spend but so much psychic energy and time on an activity with so little return. The deck has been totally stacked against the people and there's not much to be had from immersing oneself politically IMO other than operating as an informed observer That's not to suggest that there's not plenty for one to do, it's just that those things happen to be outside of the existing political paradigm.
This piece was, in my view, is very sharp and went straight to the jugular. I would add my own commentary, but it would do little more than reiterate the same point, execpet this one thing. I don’t believe anyone can totally divest. Where is it that capitalism doesn’t own the very resources one needs to live, even if independent of urban life? And if there are such places, how long will they remain independent, especially if the resources are valuable to the blood-sucking machine? In my view Ms. Carnell, the only option is to engage and fight. How you do it, matters a little less than if you do it. Other than that two cents, great article.
You know people it’s really a hoot to feel that our minds are still being control by the Devil and his movers. Why does reelecting a President have to do with killing, you people have watch unemployment kill us forever, you raped our babies and impregnated member of our family in History, have caused burglary and death in family because of unemployment, dislocated families, caused imprisonment and homelessness all over the place yet you can tell in this period of time someone else caused and not blame yourselves for all you have attributed to the cause. You hold back Jobs and stir up stupid consequences like you’re God and you know what you do on Earth will come back on you and so it written.
It is true that there are lots of awful problems in the world…including poverty, violence, terrorism, etc. We have to reach out to various groups in order to solve problems. Even in the Black Community, we need to join the NAACP or any other group that is working to help others. Politics is one way that we have to attack these problems, but if we vote for the rightwing nuts Romney and Ryan) and let them take over… YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING BAD YET. This election will determine a lot about our own finances…about jobs…about health care…about our schools…and much more. ROMNEY is the man who will wreck this nation if he gets elected.
How come I have never heard this bulls!>:: when Bush was about to be re-elected. I would like to congratulate President Obama for single-handedly doing what other black leaders could not do ‘bring all the worms out!’ Crawling out now to criticise and to fight against what they have fought for, for years. Oh I am sorry I should have remembered, they don’t think it sounds right Black in the White House!
THE BIG LIES… espec. the one about how Romney will “create millions of jobs” for Americans has been exposed. In the V.P. debate…RYAN continued with the twisted fables, lies and lack of facts as his buddy Romney did in the other debate….but BIDEN called him out on this mess. ROMNEY continues to line his pocketsand grow his bank accounts by shipping jobs overseas.
Right now…he is benefitting from BAIN making American workers train Chinese workers to take their jobs. ROMNEY is such a hypocrite…standing before us lying about how he will
“create lots of jobs in America.” Don’t waste your vote on that man !
http://youtu.be/grQTuIYnreg
Thanks. Ms. Carnell.
…..And in Detroit, their were 111 black people shot (29 fatal), in a 20-day period last month.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120920/METRO01/209200389
It’s the system, not Obama.
The only hope is for grassroots leaders to rile up the people. It begins and ends with the people.
We have to put pressure on the corporations then they will put pressure on congress. Even if Obama wanted to make a change he couldn’t because as soon as he tries he will be stopped.
Sometimes Boyce and Yvette are on point, but most of the time you cannot help but to wonder if they were just simply bored-and just had to write something.
My question to them and any other pundit is this…What is your f*****g game plan?
Man, I am sick and tired of these black pundits preaching to the choir. What the f**k are you doing besides getting paid to state the obvious.
Thanks Ms. Carnell, keep speaking the TRUTH (sometimes it hurts). Don’t be swayed about the naysayers, hopefully, they’ll wake up soon. The color of your skin does not make you correct or right! Keep on speaking out! Our kids need something to look up to and strive for! You’re more than 100 percent correct!