A Choice Between Lesser Evils?

As a lifelong Democrat the assumption would be that I am going to vote for Obama in the upcoming election.  The idea of voting for him again makes me absolutely nauseous.  His presidency has been such a disappointment.  His civil rights record is an abomination.  Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act and further eroded our civil liberties.  I feel he has sold out not only the people who voted for him and at one time believed in him, but that he has sold out our country, our future as a free country.

Voting for someone who has such a terrible civil rights record is repulsive.  When I look at the Republican candidates they look and sound like a bunch of clowns and corporate lackeys.  Voting for them is voting for the 1% to take even further control of our country, and is a vote for even further erosions of civil liberties.

This leads to the thought that perhaps I will not vote at all, because the candidates are all unworthy to be our president, all are willing to erode our civil liberties, all are willing to move us in the direction of a police state.  And yet I have the feeling that falling into despair and giving up is what corporate interests who control so much of our country want me, want us as citizens, to do:

Give up.  Don't resist.  Don't vote.  It will just make it easier for us.

That is much, much too expensive.  Thinking about how to respond to my growing despair about our political, social and economic situation- I realize that I care.  It matters what each of us do.  The question now is what is the most effective way to respond to the situation, as a country, that we now find ourselves in.

"National Defense Authorization Act- Now What?"  in Forbes Online 1/2/2012:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/02/president-obama-signed-the-national-defense-authorization-act-now-what/