Cross-posted at Docudharma

I was an Obama volunteer, donator, and county delegate in 2008.  When he was elected I spent the most hopeful night of my political life–surely a black Democrat and former community organizer would turn out to be the FDR we needed at that critical juncture, to pull us back from the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush abyss in the nick of time.  Sure, I was concerned about his ties to the finance thieves–but I really hoped that he had “snookered” them into supporting someone who would work against their ultimate interests.

Okay, now we know the truth:  It was I (and millions of other progressives) who was “snookered”.  Obama has turned out to be another tired Clintonista–really galling since I worked so hard for him precisely because I did not want Hillary to bring the corporatist-owned branch of the Democratic party back into power.  But it’s irrefutable now:  Obama has been little better than Bush the Dimmer in anything, and is worse in many big ways.  He expanded the wars in the Middle East overall, including getting us into a brand-new conflict in Syria; he has confirmed the appallingly unconstitutional power-grab called the “unitary executive”; he has refused to bring back habeas corpus; he has reneged on his promise to wind down the war on cannabis patients and respect the right of the states to provide for compassionate-use laws (a particularly grievous betrayal to me); he lied to us about the public option, while helping to force through a piece of trash that will do little more than force us to buy worthless  “insurance” from the healthcare-denial criminals; he has backed out on his promise of LBGT fairness; and most of all–he has abetted the criminal fraudsters on Wall Street (his financiers, of course) in continuing their destruction of our democracy:  Rather than put them in prison, where they sorely need to be, he stood by as they took trillions from the Fed window, and watched while they stole additional billions as “bonuses” from fundamentally insolvent, rotten institutions. He is playing by the Republican “austerity for everyone except corporatist criminals” supply-side economics handbook–with predictable results:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/08/jobs-report-unemployment-rate_n_893059.html

The fundamentals of the economy are rotten to the core, as so eloquently pointed out in this diary:

http://my.shadowproof.wpengine.com/cmaukonen/2011/07/07/the-next-financial-crisis-will-make-the-last-one-look-like-a-church-picnic/

…and this one:

http://my.shadowproof.wpengine.com/iflizwerequeen/2011/07/08/the-pyramid-scheme-known-as-the-u-s-economy-is-melting/

Now he is doing what no Republican has ever been able to do:  Set in motion the destruction of Social Security and Medicare.

Let’s face the facts:   Obama is the best Republican corporatist dirty money can buy.  So why would we consider supporting him in 2012?

Many of us have been campaigning for a progressive challenger to Obama.  That obviously isn’t going to happen, pretty much guaranteeing that we are headed for the most horrific economic crash we have ever faced (if it’s not already too late to prevent it–which it probably is).  So here’s my idea:

Why not deliberately support whichever Republican gets nominated (look for a Romney-Bachmann ticket) so that, when this crash occurs, the blame will be placed where it belongs?  Unfortunately, the corporatist-television-corrupted American electorate has no clue as to the causes of the present pain.  But they can feel the pain–and all they know, and thus what they will do, is to blame the party in power.  If Obama is elected again, the crash will leave no choice but fascism or revolution.  If it’s the Republican, though, then there will be a window for progressives to really take over the Democratic Party–which then will be in a position to offer the voting public a real alternative.

I have heard various arguments for supporting Obama, mostly coming down to 1.) He isn’t as bad as the Republicans on some issues; and 2.) The Supreme Court.  But the issues he does support us on (and they are few and far between–particularly once one realizes that the ACA is a sham designed to solidify corporatist rule over our healthcare forever) are essentially meaningless to issues of distribution of power and wealth; mere deckchairs on a helluva-big Titanic, easily evaded by the ruling kleptocracy.  As for the Supreme Court:  Why, considering that Obama has never done anything that fundamentally threatens the power of the thieves, would one believe he’ll appoint another William Douglas or Thurgood Marshall?  What we’ll get is another Anthony Kennedy–throwing the occasional bone to the sane, while continuing to traitorously deliver the wealth and power of the nation to the corporatists and idle rich.  Why would we expect otherwise?

So, how about a “Progressives for Romney (or whoever oozes up from the Republican slime pit)”?  Stating up front that we are doing it so that Republicans will get the blame for the coming disaster? Won’t be an easy pill to swallow–but we CANNOT continue to abet sellouts like Clinton/Obama. 

It is hard for me to take this position.  But something must be done–and Obama isn’t going to do it.  So let’s support progressives wherever we can–but throw Obama overboard, so that the deck will be cleared for a good candidate later.

What do you think?