If an election does not have a candidate who a voter sees as being worthy of support, not voting is a positive, if not a required, action.  In today’s political climate, who would you actually vote for for President? Let’s take a look:

Obama – At least this time you’ll know what you’re voting for.  I didn’t vote for him.  I won’t vote for him this time.

Ummm…it looks like the Dems aren’t going to have anybody else running (well, supposedly Randall Terry is going to run against Obama in the primaries).

What about the Republicans?

Ron Paul – Paul’s interesting, but as with other Libertarians liberty is in the eye of the beholder.  Stray outside of the particular Libertarian liberty and you’ll find yourself not enjoying the protection of a Libertarian society.

The rest – Bwahahahahahahahahahaha

So, you’ll have a choice of the joker Obama and a Republican joker.  You’ll have a choice of a bad President (Obama) and a probable worse Republican.  So, as always it seems, you’ll have a choice between bad and worse.

Knowingly voting for bad is, well…voting for bad. Knowingly.  Doing so, in my view, is not positive.  It’s bad.  And, what’s worse is that the act of voting for the bad just continues to encourage the bad.  I suppose voting for the bad is better than voting for the worse, but voting for the bad is still voting for the bad.

I don’t see voting for the bad over the worse as being worthwhile, so given the choice, I won’t vote (where I live, you can’t write in a candidate unless they are a declared write-in candidate, and I don’t see anybody running as an independent who’s worth voting for).  Perhaps someone will come out of the woodwork who’s worth voting for.  So far, I haven’t seen anybody worth wasting the time on.

Paul Craig Roberts on Lybia, etc.: http://counterpunch.com/robert…

Washington pursues world hegemony under the guises of selective “humanitarian intervention” and “bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed peoples.” On an opportunistic basis, Washington targets countries for intervention that are not its “international partners.”  Caught off guard, perhaps, by popular revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, there are some indications that Washington responded opportunistically and encouraged the uprising in Libya. Khalifa Hifter, a suspected Libyan CIA asset for the last 20 years, has gone back to Libya to head the rebel army.

Nothing really surprising here.  What’s more, there were stories circulating before the Lybian uprising that the US was formenting an uprising against Lybia as an attempt to do the imperialist thing.  Needless to say, pretty much any time the US goes on a foreign endeavor you can guess that it’s for the the increase of US/Corporate/Military power (and/or NWO power if you see the US’s action through that lens).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl…

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) made the announcement three weeks after failing to bring reactors 1 – 4 under control. Locals would be consulted on reactors 5 and 6, which were shut down safely.

UPDATE 1-Japan says plutonium found at Fukushima

http://af.reuters.com/article/…

TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) – Plutonium has been found in soil at various points within Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex but does not present a risk to human health, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Monday.

And

Hazardous Radiation Detected Outside Damaged Japanese Reactor

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/…

Radiation levels that can prove fatal were detected outside reactor buildings at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant for the first time, complicating efforts to contain the worst disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/…

The ‘progressive’ darling lines up behind another imperialist adventure.

http://www.socialismconference…

This will be the third conference I’ve attended! It’s $80 for early sign-up, and the rooms at the hotel are $115/night.  It’s well worth the time if you have any interest in socialism.

Paul Craig Roberts: One More Jobs Mirage

No surprise here, just more smoke and mirrors.  

The answer is that there were not 192,000 new jobs.  Statistician John Williams estimates the reported gain was overstated by about 230,000 jobs.  In other words, about 38,000 jobs were lost in February.

Solicitor General Neal Katyal, the lawyer who represents the Obama administration in the Supreme Court, argued Wednesday for reversal of a lower court ruling that would allow a lawsuit for money damages to proceed against George Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft. He is accused of abusing the “material witness” statute by using it as a pretext to jail-under barbaric conditions-a US citizen, Abdullah al-Kidd, suspected of no wrongdoing whatsoever.

You can read the rest about this latest provocation by the Obama administration here: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/…

http://prometheuscomic.files.w…

Original article, Obama’s victory for torturers, by Bill Van Auken via World Socialist Web Site:

A federal appeals court’s dismissal Wednesday of a lawsuit on behalf of victims of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program represents a victory for the Obama administration’s defense of torture and dictatorial executive powers.

There are those who can’t wrap their minds around why the Obama Administration has become a pariah amongst some on the left, or why the Democrats are being dragged down with the President. The fact that the Obama administration would, for all intents and purposes, support torture is one of a myriad of reasons. The failure of the Administration, and by proxy the Democrats in Congress who have done little or nothing to hold the torturers accountable, is disturbing and disgusting. It shows that the Democrats in Washington are, for the most part, mad with power: For them, just as it is with many (if not most) Republicans, the ends justify the means.

Original article, Struggle by Indianapolis GM workers raises crucial issues, by Jerry White via World Socialist Web Site:

A year after the United Auto Workers union collaborated with the Obama administration in the restructuring of the auto industry and the assault on auto workers’ wages and living standards, determined workers at the General Motors Indianapolis stamping plant have rebelled against the UAW and taken a stand to defend the right to a job and a decent wage.