I have no intention of voting for Obama in November. Based on what I've learned about environmental sustainability and the military industrial complex, as well as a series of discussions I've had with my wife, Elli, about this over the last year, I've come to understand that:

1. We are careening towards a series of environmental catastrophes in the next 50 years which will substantially diminish our planet's ability to support human and many other forms of life. These disasters we face are likely to cut the productive power of the planet by more than a factor of ten. (Deep Green Resistance, Aric McBay & Lierre Keith, Seven Stories Press, 2011, Pp 207-211.)

2. The United States military is the largest single source of pollution on the planet. The military is exempt from environmental regulation. Tightening clean water and air regulations is fine, but it will accomplish relatively little if the military is not subject to these limits. The demands of maintaining our empire pose the greatest environmental threat to the earth. (The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism, Barry Sanders, A.K.Press, 2009)

3. In order to prevent the looming planetary climate disaster, environmental reality must take precedence over our military and security concerns. This shift will never take place unless we pull back from our empire and dismantle the military industrial complex.

4. President Obama will do neither because he is a defender of our empire and allied with the military industrial complex.

The next few generations face grave danger from drastic climate change and resource depletion. Right now there are seven billion people living on the planet. According to the authors of Deep Green Resistance and other leading environmental scientists, this number is already well beyond the sustainable carrying capacity of the planet. I suspect many of those reading this will discount this last sentence, but I fear such rejection stems from wishful thinking rather than informed analysis.

I'm standing outside the two-party system because neither Democrats nor Republicans will challenge the military industrial complex and take on the direst threat to us all. I hope it isn't too late, and I will act as if it is not even if it might be, because despair serves no one. The last year has demonstrated the rapidity with which masses of people can transform the debate, become ungovernable, and even bring hope of a new world order. These developments are cause for optimism.