Glenn Greenwald points out that no viable candidate is addressing critically important issues:

The chances that any of these issues will be debated in an Obama/Romney presidential contest are exactly zero. On all of these issues — Endless War, empire, steadfast devotion to the Israeli government, due-process-free assassinations, multiple-nation drone assaults, escalating confrontation with Iran, the secretive, unchecked Surveillance and National Security States, the sadistic and racist Drug War, the full-scale capture of the political process by bankers and oligarchs — Romney is fully supportive of President Obama’s actions (except to the extent he argues they don’t go far enough: and those critiques will almost certainly be modulated once the primary is over, resulting in ever greater convergence between the two).

Greenwald points out that voting for Barack Obama (or Mitt Romney) regarding any of these issues would not be voting for change:

How can you pretend to vehemently oppose the slaughter of foreign civilians, the deprivation of due process, a posture of Endless War, radical secrecy, etc., when the President behind whom you’re faithfully marching is an aggressive advocate and implementer of those very policies?

In a previous column, Greenwald discussed many of Barack Obama’s “grave moral and political failings” in these areas. He quotes Matt Taibbi on the expected lack of choice in the upcoming election:

There are obvious, even significant differences between Obama and someone like Mitt Romney, particularly on social issues, but no matter how Obama markets himself this time around, a choice between these two will not in any way represent a choice between “change” and the status quo. This is a choice between two different versions of the status quo, and everyone knows it.

Nonetheless–and this is the point of Greenwald’s recent article, progressives who dare to publicly recognize that Ron Paul (despite his many major faults, from a progressive viewpoint) will be excoriated by fellow progressives and accused of being Ron Paul supporters.