Chomsky offers nothing in that interview that I have not already expressed, nor does he contradict what I have written here. It’s understandable that people in the United States should be inspired by anyone offering that magical word (”change”) even if it’s an illusion…

Can we blame people for supporting Obama? He is charismatic, charming and generally seems to be a good guy… But as he has admitted himself: after taken millions from private (and as you say, secret) interests… how can one remain independent? The trenchant corporate presence in American politics rivals the most corrupt third-world governments (albeit on a larger scale).

Greg argued against my “passivity” as he called it by claiming that Obama would be a better President than if McCain died in office and Palin took over. Perhaps. But I refuse to participate in a fundamentally flawed election process by accepting rape rather than murder. I don’t want either!

Ralph Nader recently quoted the labor organizer Eugene Debs: “My greatest regret is that, under our Constitution, the American people can have almost anything they want, but it just seems they don’t want much of anything at all.”

This is an apt characterization of the 2008 election.

I was slightly elated to hear about Obama’s candidacy in the early months of the campaign. At that time, I had only read his very critical book “Dreams From My Father”, in which he expressed views he could not afford to articulate nowadays. However, I soon became very dispirited by his comments that Jerusalem should be an exclusively Israeli city, expanding capital punishment and the “War On Terror” to Pakistan. Moreover, I know Obama cannot deliver on the promises made in the wake of his change mantra. Him accepting huge quantities of corporate campaign donations, without disclosing information about the donors, suggests that what he can and cannot do is already severely limited.

Therefore, I fully understand your position. I also basically agree that he is the “lesser of two evils” – but I would also mantain that this often-uttered statement has some veracity this time around. Noam Chomsky seems to affirm this view in this interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh7ps1KWl_M

McCain’s statements insinuated that he would prioritize military solutions in “dealing with” Iran. While I know that the EU and US, which is utterly unwilling to disarm, have no right to demand that the Iran ceases to enrich uranium – my support for Obama partially rested on the fear of what McCain would do in respect to this issue when in office. Moreover, if McCain had won, he would have won based on a majority that accepted the plethora of Islamophobic and otherwise bigoted slurs that surfaced in his campaign. Perhaps showing relief that Obama is elected is glossing over the many abuses that have been made (and will continue to be made) during the “War On Terror”; but the urgency of this political moment made me feel that way, even though I am also very doubtful about it.