It
distresses this African author to slowly come to the realization that
African-American's honorable legacy of opposing Euro-America's
imperialist wars is quickly eroding. This is by no means a rush
observation on my part; my assessment dates back to 2008. It was in 2008
that a United States senator named Barack Obama was elected president. I
was definitely within the minority of Africans who made the strong
decision not to vote for either corporate candidate (Barack Obama &
John McCain). Senator Barack Obama made it clear that he intended to
expand the war in Afghanistan if he was elected – and he more than made
good on that promise. This is merely one of the reasons I had for not
supporting Barack Obama as president. And if there was no better option
for me, I would simply not have voted in that election. I don't buy in
to the lesser of two evils argument; if you do you are ultimately still voting for evil.
Several
politically limited acquaintances of mine assumed that I was voting for
the other warmonger, John McCain, when I informed them I that I would
not be supporting their brown pirate. Without realizing it, they were
showcasing the tiny boxes they resided within simply by way of their
assumption. Within their politically manufactured world there are no
other choices beyond that of Democrats and Republicans. They have been
cleverly trained to believe that there are marked differences between
the two corporate parties. Some of these individuals thought I was
"selling out" because I was not voting for the brown man – the brown man
who could not give a damn about championing any policies that might
tangibly improve African/black people's living conditions. I was a "sell
out" for not wanting to vote for a man who openly supported an
imperialist war – a brown man who voted for the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA). It mattered little that I was actually voting
for an African/black woman who had more political experience than Barack
Obama or that she was anti-war and supported polices geared towards
eradicating poverty and improving the living conditions of those who
have been historically marginalized (including black folks). Most
admitted that they never heard of the Green Party (www.gp.org).
These concrete reasons mattered little – they thought I was wasting my
vote on someone "who could not win this election." These folks wanted me
to sell out my morality by voting for the lesser of two evils simply
because that evil was brown. Sadly, some of these folks did not even
know who Cynthia McKinney was, however, upon learning about her policies
they verbally approved of them but could not vote for her since she was
unknown and therefore had "no chance of winning." "A vote for her was a
vote for McCain", they said. They were oblivious tools of the
Democratic Party, which now owned their political minds. For them,
rationale discussion and facts were like Kryptonite.
-- Solomon Comissiong, "Obama's Destructive Foreign Policy and Black Disillusionment" (Black Agenda Report).