Verbatim Post
Glenn Greenwald has a comprehensive must-read election piece about the problems with progressives who put all criticism of Barack Obama off-limits and dismiss Ron Paul out-of-hand.
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies
Whatever else one wants to say, it is indisputably true that Ron Paul is the only political figure with any sort of a national platform — certainly the only major presidential candidate in either party — who advocates policy views on issues that liberals and progressives have long flamboyantly claimed are both compelling and crucial. The converse is equally true: the candidate supported by liberals and progressives and for whom most will vote — Barack Obama — advocates views on these issues (indeed, has taken action on these issues) that liberals and progressives have long claimed to find repellent, even evil.
Greenwald also mentions the war on drugs numerous times in this powerful piece. For example, on Obama:
He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason.
And he explains why some progressives react so vehemently against Paul…
The parallel reality — the undeniable fact — is that all of these listed heinous views and actions from Barack Obama have been vehemently opposed and condemned by Ron Paul: and among the major GOP candidates, only by Ron Paul. For that reason, Paul’s candidacy forces progressives to face the hideous positions and actions of their candidate, of the person they want to empower for another four years.
Excellent critical analysis in an election season of sound-bites and partisan politics.
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