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Barack Obama Wins Democratic Nomination
An anonymous reader was one of many who noted that Barack Obama has claimed the Democratic nomination having secured enough delegates and super-delegates to claim victory. Of course, technically this assumes that the supers all vote as they say they will and they are free to change their minds. So no doubt we'll continue to hear debate on this subject until either the convention or Hillary steps down.
Hasn't this guy been in the news enough for the last two years? Can't we get his name right yet?
You may be right that Obama can't win, but in times like this I think sometimes you have to just roll the dice and go for it otherwise nothing changes.
Clinton has no practical reason to "go away" - Obama's victory was surprisingly narrow. Over the last few months the Obama campaign lost momentum - Clinton's victories were quite substantial in several key states that would be essential to a Democratic victory (Ohio and Pennsylvania especially).
Given Obama's weakness in three key Democratic demographics - women, white blue collar workers, and Hispanics - Clinton still has a substantial role to play in the election.
Her supporters are bitter about how they perceive Clinton's treatment versus how Obama has been treated by the press. I realize it's anecdotal, but talking to a number of my friends who were ardent Clinton supporters I've become worried that they simply won't vote Democrat due to what they perceive was the unfairness and sexism of the campaign.
Clinton's in a strong position to request the VP slot. If she concedes to Obama then she simply becomes an also-ran, and has no negotiating power.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Well, the interesting thing is that in no primary in the US history has the outcome ever been so close. Obama has certainly won the primary, but just barely.
The party is truly split between the two candidates, and for the Obama team to take a small winning margin and run all the way to the general election while ignoring Hillary and keeping her out of the team, it will majorly turn off roughly half of the Democratic Party. The Obama team just wants Hillary to go away, but when she has the support of half the party, how can she just give up and disappear? That would be irresponsible to her supporters.
Another argument that the Obama team has been making for the past few months is that Clinton is ruining Obama's chances in the general election by keeping the election going, and that she's been mean to him with her campaign. The sad thing is that what Hillary has thrown at Obama is nothing compared to what the Republicans will throw at him starting now. If they cannot stand Hillary's attacks, they're going to crumple under McCain and the whole Republican propaganda machine.
It certainly is an interesting time in politics, seeing such a split in the Democratic party. Hopefully it can come together, but it won't happen if Obama just runs fully with it, leaving HIllary in the dust. Or, as you put it, to "make this woman go away".
make world, not war
What makes you think that democrat bullshit is any better? Neither party serves the interests of the people in this country.
I threw everything out the damn window that made me a Republican 8 years ago and until I see a positive change in that party I'm not going back. The Republicans dug the hole they are in. They have to dig themselves out now, and McCain is not the answer. He's already digging that hole deeper.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mccain-id-spy-o.html
The Clintons and the Bushes are like political Herpes. In my life time, we have had Reagan/Bush, Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quale, Clinton/Gore, Clinton/Gore, Bush/Cheney, Bush/ Cheney -- complete with all the usual suspects from the 80s and 90s... and the fucking Ford administration, too!!
I am SO FUCKIGN GLAD its not going to be another 8 years of Clinton -- followed by what, Jeb Bush then Chelsey Clinton?
Bush Sr. and Clinton palling around...
but yeah, study hard, stay away from drugs and out of cyber-porn on the internet and YOU could be President of the United States some day.... pfft
sure.
Anyway, Obama would be demonized with any name, and regardless of his hue. No matter who he is, if he's a D and he's running, then he'll be the "single most liberal member of Congress" since Che Guavera or whoever, an "elite" know-it-all who is out of touch with the heartland of America, will have gotten a "free pass" from our "overwhelmingly liberal media," would put us in danger of "appeasing" the terrorists, "emboldening our enemies," etc. It's the same script, every time, all the time. The Republicans always use the same words to galvanize their base, because, well, it works. Who or what Obama is or isn't has little to do with how the Republicans will vote.
However, the counterpoint is that attitudes such as yours result in stagnation. There can be no change if those who would support change abandon their causes. Back in 1999, I fought against the local university over students being unfairly charged for their meals. And I won. At first it was a little win, then slowly over the next few years the university changed their policies. It takes time to change.
In fact, the dean who I went up against told me something that I haven't forgotten "Its a big ship and if you want to turn it you have to slow it down first." So with a ship the size of a country, unless you want to pick up guns and force change, change takes time.
Hillary (like Bill) is hyper-ambitious and a sore loser. Right now she's still steaming and trying to plot a new course for the only person she ever cared about in this election (herself). She'll be back in a new form soon enough (no doubt trying to strong-arm her way into the VP spot).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Your cynical post seems smart to the casual observer. It is not.
First of all, unless you cherry-pick polls, there is no statistical evidence that Hillary (or some other candidate) would be more successful against McCain. This is a talking point of the Clinton campaign only. You can go on about how names "ring", but without statistical evidence you are frankly spouting nonsense. Your gut feeling that Americans care about someone's name is simply not supported by real facts.
Your "learn from history" canard reminds us of 2004, when Democratic primary voters chose John Kerry on this cynical view that he was the most likely to "win". Well, he lost. So much for that. The refrain you might have heard from moderate voters four years ago was that they didn't know what Kerry was about, and that his campaign seemed more anti-Bush than pro-anything.
Obama is not going to win the votes of right-wingers; he will win as all Democrats win, by appealing to the middle and the left. The moderates in this country are smarter than you seem to think.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I HOPE not. Louisiana needs Jindal more than US needs him as VP. Also, Jindal only has slightly more experience in government than Obama (which isn't saying much), and has never held down a non-government "real job." If Jindal can help get Louisiana off the bottom of some lists, he'll be considered a success and almost be a walk-in to the Republican nomination in 2016.
Whats in a name.. Democrat.. Republican.. those are just names, the issues they stood for fell by the wayside long ago.
The current crop of politicians have their own agendas, and in many cases, those agendas cross the borders between the party lines, and in some cases, quite far across those borders.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Historically the Republicans have plenty of ties to terrorists, and nobody seems to care.
It's entirely possible to love and admire your spiritual advisor while thinking that his more worldly theories are insane. There is at least one person in my life like that, although his theories are somewhat more tame. But anyone who has done research on this man doesn't want him as president. I'm utterly sick of this kind of bullshit talk. If you don't like him, fine. Say so. But saying that it is impossible to like him if you know him is ridiculous. Plenty of people do. Accept that other people can have opinions which do not match yours.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
"if you don't vote then you don't have any 'moral' right to complain about the result."
That's a quaint assumption backed up by no rationale whatsoever. I am a taxpayer and a US citizen, so I have every right to persuade other members of society to effect changes I desire. Voting is a right, not a gateway to other rights. On its own, it also happens to be the least effective method of bringing about change. I would rather use my freedom of speech to persuade the public to bring about a candidate that will uphold everyone's rights rather than trample them. Until such a candidate exists, there will be no acceptable choice for president.
Dang, poor choice of words on my part, and I apologize. I should have said "conservative" and then made it a general statement on those who claim to be Republican and then switch their vote - who I almost automatically see should be conservatives at the base - change their vote for someone who doesn't represent anything that they stand for.
The best thing for her to do if she really cares about the Democrats is to drop out now.
True, but if she only cares about being elected in 2012, the best thing for her to do is to stay in as long as possible so as to reduce Obama's chances in the general election, thereby saving herself from the nearly impossible task of wresting the Democrat nomination from a sitting president.
Unfortunately, the Clintons very often seem to default to the most politically expedient course of action, so this wouldn't surprise me.
It is also important, for the marketing folks, to have an idea of what the site's readers policitcal leanings are. This helps the article selection process be more accurate by selecting articles that will generate either a lot of 'me too' comments or a lot of enraged counter commentary.
This reminds me I need to re-up my subscription.
I read the political articles more for entertainment than anything else. Slashdot has a lot of high school and college age users and I find their optimism fun to read. Most of them have been paying attention to the political world only through the W years, maybe the last of Clinton's. They just aren't ready to admit to themselves that these new guys will be just like the old guys.
I actually hope Obama wins so when he signs some new **AA sponsored bill I'll get to read all the heartbroken comments. It'll be like the Google articles, only with more page hits.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Why? John McCain. Campaign Finance Reform. Open Broders. Keating 5. That old person smell. On issues that matter to me, John McCain gets it wrong. Barack Obama might also get it wrong but 1) he's not (yet) part of the washington culture and 2) republicans in congress will start acting conservative.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You forgot -
Paul: An idiot candidate who thought he understood economics, but did not even grasp the very basics of it.
If Paul's fiscal policies were implemented (e.g. going back to the gold standard), the US (and possibly, the world) economy would be shot to hell.
Isn't it amazing how the Republicans manage to label every single candidate that we run as the "most leftist" or "most liberal"? They did it to Al Gore and John Kerry and now they are trying to do it to Senator Obama. Hell, I suspect they'd be doing it if we had nominated Joe Libermann or Zell Miller.
It's almost enough to give you the idea that they know they can't win on the issues so they have to run a campaign of FUD.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yes. We should remind people that it doesn't matter if you're black or white. The only color that matters is green.
Leftism is bad because it takes from those who earned and gives to those who don't deserve.
Uh, that's what the American government is all about. Right or Left, everybody's stealing from one group and giving it to some others, many of whom haven't earned it in any way. On the left you have the welfare system, which gives free money to poor people, and on the right you have super-rich tax breaks and "back room corporate deals", which gives free money to the fabulously wealthy.
You have two choices - either accept this premise, and decide which system of redistribution you think is "least unfair", or reject it entirely, and work to radically change our government and socio-economic system so that all kinds of involuntary redistribution are unnecessary and impossible to execute.
Because, for some unknown reason, a large portion of the people in the U.S. equate a person's religion with who they are. It's as if one of the reasons we broke from you folks has been completely forgotten.
Apparently, people believe that if you believe in some man-made myth of a supreme being who sits high in the sky watching everything you do, who tells you you must follow a set of rules they have set down or else you will be condemned to an eternity of pain and torture yet, who still cares and loves you*, you are somehow more worthy of an elected office than the atheistic heathens who do not believe in a supreme being.
And we can all see what a great job those religious-minded folks who have been elected to office have done.
*My apologies to George Carlin fans for not quoting his diatribe accurately. I just wanted to get the gist of his comments.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Exactly. The Republican Party is not "conservative". That word is only used to get votes. In fact, the Republican Party has put the U.S. government into far more debt.
There are, in effect, two Republican Parties. One is a real political party. The other is extremely corrupt and merely says anything necessary to get control. The real purpose is control, not managing the U.S. government for its citizens. For example, search digg.com and reddit.com for the term "martial law".
There has been conflict of interest because of the fact that the president and vice-president and their families and friends and associates have a history of investment in oil and weapons. The purpose of invading Iraq was to get control of the oil supply, so that the price of oil would rise. Saddam Hussein was not cooperating; he was selling as much oil as he wanted.
The reason for the U.S. government's plan to invade Iran is to further restrict the supply of oil. If the U.S. government invades, the price of oil could easily become $8 per gallon; it is necessary to have oil to make our societies function; people would have to pay any price.
Also, his name is "Barack" Obama, as others have noted. I wish Slashdot editors could be real editors, and check their work.
Leftism is bad because it takes from those who earned and gives to those who don't deserve.
So does Rightism. I'd rather my money went to the homeless alcoholic living under a railway bridge than the CEO of some megacorporation who has just wangled himself a massive tax break.
I just wish for once a person would run on something other than a slew of social issues that they have no power to change. And worse yet, I wish people would stop voting for canidates based on their stance on abortion or gay marriage or anything else. The ideal person, for me, is the person who can evaluate situations as they come along and apply a little bit of common sense in government. Maybe this describes Ron Paul, maybe it doesn't. In the end, I know that this is just a dream because the large parties will never nominate someone who goes against their social agenda and people will never vote for someone who goes against their beliefs.
I don't support him personally, but in your case, why not vote for Ron Paul? Vote for who you want to win, not some asshole who's convinced you he has the best chance to win. Better to stand for your principles and lose than abandon them to win. It's the latter choice (on the part of politicians and the public) that's given us the pathetic political situation we're in today.
The people who aren't going to vote for Obama because his middle name is Hussein are the same people who would look for any excuse to not vote for him without crossing the line.
If it isn't the name, it will be the way he speaks. If it's not that it will be because of the arguments he had with Clinton. And so on.
If she is seen as reducing Obama's chances in the general election the harm to her reputation and the resulting backlash will keep her from ever having the support needed to try again.
P.S. I think the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto may have an effect along these lines: "Communists think that religion is a drug and they condemn in. We need to be high on it all the time if we are NOT Communists"
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
I'm generally a conservative. I hesitate to call myself a republican, though that is the party I'm registered with, but of the two majors, they are closer to what I believe in. A libertarian might be the right term, though they tend to be rather... Extremist. The point is, I'm not a Democrat and didn't get to vote in that primary.
Regardless I am what you might call a moderate conservative. I have and will certainly cross party lines. I vote based on who I think will do the best job, not a D or an R. So I'm the kind of voter that the democrats need to be after. In my case, I'll almost certainly vote for Obama if he's nominated. If not, I'll probably vote for McCain. I don't like Clinton at all. She seems very totalitarian, in that she thinks she knows what's best for the economy, for you personally (her video game stance for example) and so on. That is opposite to what I think. I think in general government should try and stay out of things, when practical. They should be a force that guides the economy, not controls it, and that ensures people have freedoms but that they don't infringe on others, not that hands out a list of what is right and wrong.
So for me, Obama is good. I don't agree with him 100%, but then I don't agree with anyone but myself 100%. However over all I like his policies, and I think he'll be good for the nation. Clinton, no, sorry, I won't go that route. While I don't think McCain is as good a candidate as Obama, I think he's better than Clinton.
I'm not the only person I know who's the same way either. I have a number of friends with similar political views and the thing I hear is "I hope Obama wins because I'll vote for him, but if not I'll vote for McCain."
Hardcore republicans are a lost cause. They'll vote R no matter what. So while they might hate Obama more, it doesn't matter since they won't vote for Hillary either. They are all R all the time. The people who matter are those who come down on the conservative side, but aren't caught up in party dogma.
Now I have no empirical evidence as to who will vote what way, but this assumption that Clinton has the ability win win republicans where as Obama doesn't is just silly. Neither will win the party voters, and I and my friends are proof that there are at least some out there who feel Obama yes, Clinton no. We probably aren't the only ones either.
No candidate is going to have a walk in the park this time around, all of them have something that a non-trivial portion of America has a problem with. However that doesn't mean Obama has no chance, in fact I'd say it is quite the opposite.
Actually, McCain thinks torture is not OK, which is why the US don't torture anyone.
What's that? Oh...well that's not torture.
Oh and that? Hm...well see, that wasn't technically "the US".
Convenient how that works, huh?
Well, here's the quote:
I guess you and I just read things differently, because I got a bit more nuance out of his statements, and "people only like guns/religion because they're poor" doesn't quite capture it. Seeing the economic viability of your community crumble, seeing the way of life of your parents crumble, can be a polarizing experience, and yes, people cling to things, things they consider symbolic of their way of life. I don't see anything especially patronizing about saying that people are pissed off and that when they're pissed off the symbolic things matter more than they might in times of prosperity.
I didn't turn my back on the Republicans. They turned their backs on me. I wanted fiscal conservatives. I got spending that made the liberals turn green with envy. I wanted strong foriegn policy. I got a war over non-existant WMDs, which has weakened both our military and our political capital with other nations. I wanted to escape the Democrats fear-mongering. I got Republican fear-mongering.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The republican party does the exact same thing, it's just less honest about it. The democrats will tax you and then do whatever with the money, but at least you see the money coming out of your wallet. The republicans don't tax you, but still do whatever with the money, pretending like it magically grows on trees. Eventually it catches up with you as prices rise and your income doesn't, not to mention the mountains of new debt we're piling up daily. Either party is going to spend your money, but at least the democrats respect your intelligence enough not to lie to you about it.
The only type of conservatism that currently exists in the republican party is social conservatism, and I'd think that you as a libertarian would have some serious issues with that.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
So who decides that those "don't deserve"? Not everyone on welfare is on it by choice. Poor families don't want to live in shitty neighborhoods that aren't safe and where their children don't get the same quality education.
We have no "left" party in the United States. We have a moderate party with vaguely left leanings and a "conservative" party which really isn't much different except with respect to religious beliefs (currently) and a few other social issues. There is no longer (and hasn't been for a long time) a party of small government and "personal responsibility" that advocates not having social programs. If there was such a party they would have fought much harder to abolish Social Security, amongst many other programs. They wouldn't have instituted a "no child left behind" policy that brings the standard down for the whole so that a few can be pushed through the system whether they deserve to be or not.
Back to your point, "leftism" isn't bad, it's just not based entirely on greed. In fact, leftism, in theory, is getting back to the family unit, and extending that to helping people not directly related. The whole "we're only as strong as our weakest link" thing. It works on a small scale, but is unwieldy on a large scale, which is the real problem.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Yes. I wanna help my neighbors
Do you want to help your neighbors, or do you want to force me help your neighbors?
That's the difference between private charity, funded by people who want to donate to it, and government welfare, funded by taxes.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Even Bush's country accent is fake--he's not really a country boy, not really a rancher, etc. But the populism button keeps on spitting out the votes. As cynical as I am, I still find it depressing.
"More taxes means less freedom"
So it follows that places like Afganistan and Sudan are on the top of the freedom list and the scandanavian countries are near the bottom?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Thank you for demonstrating once more that libertarianism is about childish selfishness at its base. What magical fairy land do you live in where everyone is born with the exact same opportunities?
Protip: we are a society, and without that society those who "earned" would have nothing. A society doesn't survive by kicking the less fortunate in the nuts. For every greedy welfare moocher (which I'm guessing you imagine make up the majority of the people on welfare) out there there are a hundred families who have fallen on hard times because the parents' employers care more about profit than about people.
Government exists to serve and protect the people. All of them. I suggest you get over yourself and get used to it.
Yes.
What part of "black" did you not understand?
I would not be shocked to see Obama win the presidency with an overwhelming landslide. There is a lot of resentment towards the republican party at this time.
Yet if Hillary hangs on it just might be that Obama may suffer from a couple of foot in mouth disasters that could cause the delegates to give Hillary the nomination.
As for the race issue I think many whites do not think of Obama as being a black man. Culturally he seems to be white and his skin is not dark. The prejudice against women may well be greater than racial prejudice towards Obama.
You don't pay for gas?
Taxes are not the only way Government causes money to move from one entity to another.
If you're a "have not" then you understand the concept of debt and how big a hole the republican party dug fiscally, how do you think we will pay that debt in the future? You can bet on higher taxes or taxes on more goods and services. They took from everyone and spent the money frivolously and continue to do so without remorse. I'll add that a lot of that money left the United States.
I wish I could say the democrats behaved differently but they don't, they just spent it on different things. I'll grant that democrats tend to spend it on things that actually help domestically though.
Modern democrats have a much better track record for getting us back into a sane budget and thats really what we need right now.
Taxes are not the only way Government causes money to move from one entity to another. Sure, I pay for gas. The tax money that goes with that is used to build and maintain the roads that I drive on. I've seen the people that are working on those roads. They don't look wealthy to me.
BTW, I would pay less for gas if we were allowed to produce it locally. Tell me, which party is outsourcing our gas and oil production?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Maybe leftists simply recognize that you pay one way or the other. You can have less inequality or you have to pay for more policing. You can have a public health service or you can have people who are sick and less productive.
When he's not Bush Light, McCain understands this.
Did someone just say Reaganomics actually works? Are you high? The tax cut did not enable them to hire you, first of all, corporate tax cuts are different than personal income tax cuts.
In my company they started growing so there was increased demand on IT personnel so necessity forced him to hire me, since then my automation has saved him millions and he's since doubled staff in other parts of the company. See how economies work?
Taxes are a reality of doing business, if the current tax structure is keeping especially a large corporation from growing then that corporation is already in rough shape given that most cities grant them tax breaks to build in their town.
Look at the economic stimulus check which didn't do jack because everyone is so in debt that they just spent the $600 or so on gas or food. With inflation the way it is that money doesn't go as far as it would have 8 years ago when gas and food was cheaper.
I agree with you. I think it's a f-ing shame that McCain is being fed to the wolves as the nominee for this election. He's the only non-born-again GOP nominee who (currently) has the potential to get elected. However, the GOP needs a solid cleaning up and a resounding defeat this fall is the only way that's going to happen. They need to purge all the religious zealots, war mongers, and lobbyist puppets and get back to a base of solid fiscal conservancy and international trade. Right now, it's ironic that the Dems offer the best options for the above. I'm voting for Obama, because I expect him to run a tight ship and weaken the grip of lobbyists over DC. Time will tell how right I am, but right now, there's simply no better candidate in my mind's eye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Meanwhile, all that lost revenue in taxes affected many other people outside your immediate perception. I'm glad the tax cuts helped you personally, but plenty of people have been hurting under the tax breaks.
Yeah, I really can't see him (Obama) fucking things up worse than they already are.
There is a war going on for your mind.
You must live in a reality where everything is black and white. Higher gas prices means fewer gas consumers whilst lower prices brings more consumption. We're witnessing that right now. For envirodems, lower consumption is a GOOD thing not a bad thing.
Moreover, higher gas prices means that other source of energy that are arguably "better" from a sustainability/environmental perspective but previously unworkable given the price of gasoline become much more appealing.
Besides, an increase in domestic production would have such a SMALL impact on the overall cost of gasoline and any impact would be fleetingly short lived. The US simply does not have enough oil reserves to make much of a lasting impact.
Finally, there's a really good argument that we should drain the cheap oil from other places first and keep our oil reserves until a time it actually matters. Using our reserves now would probably not give us a real good return on its value.
A very cynical part of me thinks McCain is being set up for failure. It seems like the social conservatives and born again Christians should not rally around McCain unless he's clearly going to win. Instead they're should hang back and let him get crushed by the Democrats. Then they'll use his defeat as proof that the party should have selected a socially conservative born-again candidate. In the end they'll gather more power to themselves and wait for the Democrats to screw up something to feed the attack machine to get back in power.
In short, if the republicans lose either the religious zealots, warmongers and lobbyist puppets will get purged, or if they have already gathered enough power unto themselves, it will they who are doing the purging. Either way, the republican party is headed for serious trouble if they don't win the next presidential election, which there is every indication that they will not.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
He did NOT say "people cling to religion and guns because they're poor" you spin-monkey shrill a-hole.
Here's a quote so you can stop spreading that bullshit "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not."
"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." And that quote is from a freaking right-wing Roman Catholic website! (the first three pages of my google search were all from right-wingers trying to make Obama look bad, go figure).
Jesus christ all ready. All he basically said was that they're living in dried up commuinities that keep getting passed over by the government even though they're promised relief, which of course frustrates these people (eventually leading to becoming bitter against the government) and they turn to ("cling") their hobbies and beliefs to express their frustration.
Take your obnoxious right-wing out-of-context political spin and shove it up your ass.
Do you want to be forced to pay pennies of your income to help my neighboors, or do you want them to turn to a life of crime to support themselves and wind up in a prison where you will be forced to pay dollars of your income to support them?
Public education, social responsibility, and the empowerment of all will help you more significantly than isolating yourself from society.
I'm not saying we should go all commie or socialist over here, but a balanced struggle between socialist and capitalist (and many other!) points of view in our government is what keeps it healthy. Falling in the trap of a single party (even a dual party like we have now) reduces our government's health.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
And the prevailing view of the governed in the USA is more along the lines of the poster you replied to. So I guess the governed need to get over themselves and get used to whatever the government decrees and takes.
I actually am in line with your sympathetic nature, but conservatives could easily counter that the proper avenue of assisting society's less fortunate is through voluntary charity, not government-enforced redistribution.
Obama will get us out of Iraq. But he's not a mindless pacifist (no reasonable leader ever should be). There's a big difference.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You've got to be kidding me. This is the #1 reason that I can't really be a libertarian. Altruism and having people "take care of the poor" on their own time is a fantastic idea, except that it DOESN'T WORK. Human Beings are assholes, and most would as soon kick a guy in the gutter before giving him a dollar, much less pick him up and help him find a job. Just admit that you don't give jack sh*t about people who through luck or mental illness are in a bad situation.
If you quit the welfare program tomorrow I guarantee you crime would rise through the roof and local charities wouldn't be able to do anything more than they already do. How do I know? Because I volunteer all the time, and most charities (especially for the homeless and battered women shelters) are full to the TILT every day, and have to turn away people. It really is sad.
"sometimes he felt that his whole life was a dream, and he wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
"Yet if Hillary hangs on it just might be that Obama may suffer from a couple of foot in mouth disasters that could cause the delegates to give Hillary the nomination."
Umm, you do realize that this entire article is about Obama WINNING the nomination right? That means Hillary can't get the nomination, or in other words, SHE LOST. So unless she has some real Karl Rovian counting tricks up her sleeve, it is over for HRC.
And yes, many people don't think of Obama as black, because he isn't. He is half white and half black - and a whole to neither. So all you "Obama hates all white people" folks out there, do you honestly believe he hates his mother and half of himself?? And the "prejudice against women" crap was drummed up by Hillary's camp to guarantee her the female vote. Nothing to see here, move along. I was waiting to see when Hillary would launch her own "Swift Boat" campaign against Obama. Maybe she sold that spot to the Republicans for McCain to use against him later...
"But this one goes to 11!"
Those tax cuts combined with deficit spending means you just enjoyed the theft of resources from future generations as well as the future you. That's how economies really work, there's no free lunch, just deferred debt.
Most Americans however can't see past the upcoming quarter evidently.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
what's the price of gas over there? And you must live in an alternate reality where Democrats understand that the laws of supply and demand regulate gas prices and allow for increased production in addition to increased efficiency to bring the cost of oil down.
In the real world that I live in, I've heard Republicans screaming for increased domestic production and Democrats screaming, "NO!" Well , i'll tell you this . It doesn't matter whether it's democrat or republican . The result for the American people matters . So make a choice based on what changes you want , rather than on something as relative as a political position.
At least you have the ability to vote for it. I don't live in the US , so i can't vote for it.
Yet the consequences are for the entire world.
Slipping shoelaces ?
He had the moral ground, then he gave it away by backing down on waterboarding.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/13/mccain-waterboarding-fail/
He voted against the ban on waterboarding.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
And intelligent people could counter that relying on voluntary charity is inefficient and tends to fund things based on emotional appeal rather than actual need (Worry more about giving dying aids children with cancer a chance to ride a pony than actually funding research into a cure).
Certainly not immediate withdrawal from Iraq
... if any, are we going to take military action?
Ooh not "immediate" withdrawal. It'll be fast enough for most of us.
at what point
Oh yeah, that's a terrible threat there. "There may or may not exist a point where we would want to use military action to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons". Wow, so hostile there, compared to Bush's peace offerings.
Considering that he has also been heavily criticized for saying he would speak directly with Iran's President, i.e. use diplomacy, this 'threat' seems pretty irrelevant.
is recent vote for allocating $165 billion for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan (including $51 billion dollars for veterans' education) tell me that he, like any other corporate-funded Democrat, have no principled objection to war or to these wars in particular.
Funding a war in progress -- and in particular caring for our people damaged by this war -- is completely different from not objecting to it. Guess what? It'll cost money to get our troops out of Iraq too, so when he proposes a spending bill that includes this money, don't lump that in with "supporting the war".
Democrats deserve no slack, and should be given none.
I don't hold the actions of Nixon or Reagan against Bush Jr; I see no reason to hold the actions of JFK against Obama. Because that makes no sense.
The enemies of Democracy are
It doesn't matter if everyone is born with the same opportunities. I was born poor to a couple of crackhead parents. I went off on my own at 16 years old and did what I had to do. I'm sick of people saying 'ooh I was born into this ghetto and I can't get out there are no opportunities.' Cry me a river. Get yourself a pair and get out of that environment. I've worked at pizza places, temp jobs, telemarketing, and other jobs that most poor people won't even take because 'it doesn't pay me enough'. How can you justify handouts that are taken by force from the rich when most of the poor people I know won't even take a crap job? I've slept in cars, under bridges, on the el train, buses, you name it. I finally managed to land a full time job and buy a car after years of hard work. Childish selfishness? No, I call it the inability to comprehend why people can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps and thake care of themselves. Everybody wants something for nothing. In Libertarianism, there is no such thing as a free lunch. What, exactly, is wrong with that?
As an outsider looking in (I live in Canada), I'm amazed at how little the American media seems to discuss the issue of the federal and state deficits, and the national debt.
I would argue that perhaps the media considers it a 'complicated issue' but it shouldn't be - All you need to do is draw analogies to credit cards or mortgages and most people would 'get it'. In my opinon, the fact that the American nation-state is willing to simply offload their spending upon the nation's children is criminal. You guys need to either a) accept that the kind of spending you demand from your government(s) needs to be funded from somewhere and accept higher taxes or b) accept that spending needs to be deeply cut. You can't have it both ways.
Without tax revenue, the bills from the excessive spending of the Bush administration cannot be paid . This is deferred debt. This is why tax cuts were irresponsible and not appropriate.
Everybody agrees that we should cut spending (on things that don't benefit them directly usually), but it's my view that we should spend only money that we have. That's how I manage myself and it keeps me happy and those who deal fairly with me happy.
Ever since the rabid warmongering of the paranoid years of Truman we've been digging this deficit hole and it's got to a point where we'll never get out, we'll just collapse one day because everybody's just too short sighted.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Invading Iraq wasn't an effort to obtain free oil for America, it was an effort to stop Saddam Hussein from dumping his oil on the market and lowering prices (and profits) for OPEC aligned oil producers.
It also intended to destroy Iraq's infrastructure and then rebuild it using Bush/Cheney linked contractors paid for by Iraq's oil (oil that would not hit the market and lower prices).
Gas is now approaching $5 per gallon: mission accomplished!
Did you really think an oil man, albeit a failed one, was trying to obtain a new oil source to provide US consumers with lower prices? He profits from selling oil, and profits more from selling oil at higher prices.
Invading Iraq wasn't about creating an oil colony, it was about empowering Bush's oil partners, including the Saudi bin Ladens who benefitted so much from pulling rival oil from Iraq (a rival secular state that didn't practice the same form of Islam) off the market.
It also wasn't about containing radical Islam. Bush converted Iraq from a secular state that was an enemy of Saudi terrorists into a radically fire breathing terrorist training camp with groups that are now supportive of Al Qaeda and/or ready to plot their own attacks on the US and any foreigners in the area.
Again, Mission Accomplished! The world is now safer for Bush/Saudi oil profits, Cheney's military contractors, fundamentalist terrorists, US police state fascism, and higher energy costs are helping to subsidize everything.
Hard to believe, but never the less, true.
A second piece of wisdom. You do yourself a disservice praising and quoting a piece liberally sprinkled with the following kinds of phrases: "Magic Negro", "Negro clown", "young gentleman of color is claiming to have had a sexual encounter with Saint Barack", "because Obama is a socialist, a Democrat, and - especially - a Negro". It strongly suggests that you yourself are quite comfortable with overt racism and pathological hate. And it leads me to the conclusion, Mr. Cornelius, that you are engaged in a crude form of psychological rationalization for your own unstated racist sentiments.
A little self-introspection may be in order.
Mcain's words are anti-torture. his actions are pro-torture.
The worst part is that I honestly believe that he IS strongly opposed to torture. This means that he is willing to compromise his values for political gain.
I'm not sure what part of "The US government is responsible for infecting zillions of blacks with AIDS," mis-citing the Tuskegee experiments (which didn't infect anyone with syphilis, but rather allowed their infections to go untreated) as evidence, is being taken out of context. The same can be said for many of Wright's other ridiculous claims.
And I don't think for a minute that Barack Obama believes any of that crap. But I do question his honesty and his judgment in how he handled the whole mess, and those are issues of character that are relevant in a Presidential campaign.
The idea that any finite amount of money could "Eliminate extreme poverty around the world" is a fraud and nothing else. Bad governments in the poorest countries will steal all the money and use it to strengthen the government and enrich the leaders. In relatively rich countries, most extreme poverty is due to personal waste and sloth, and no amount of money can fix that either.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Then you'll really hate me. I consider myself a Republican, but since I live in NYC registered Democrat since there aren't any Republicans here. I do like to actually participate in primaries, thank you.
As for your assertion that Republicans somehow "stand for" something... well, that's where I'm becoming somewhat disenchanted.
Republicans are supposed to be the party of Lincoln, yet it seems like the racists have flocked to it for some reason. That is troubling.
Republicans are supposed to be the party of smaller government, yet with all three branches of government firmly under Republican control, they somehow managed to EXPAND government as the politicians ran around like unsupervised kids in a candy store. That is troubling.
Along the same lines, I also strongly object to the Republicans' tendency to expand government into nanny roles.
All that being said, the Democrats aren't one shred better - but they really haven't been any worse, either.
But I'm curious as to what you think makes Barak so leftist? He and McCain differ very little on any major issue. Even health care is not so different, with McCain subsidizing health care through tax credits (and eliminating the tax writeoff) vs. Obama keeping the current system but increasing taxes on employers that don't offer health benefits. Both systems are a marginal expansion of government, and Barak's proposal is slightly more limited than Hillary's.
I think the two major parties are far more similar than you have been led to believe, except on issues that really don't matter to the well-being of the country - like gay marriage or abortion. So-called "wedge issues" that get people lined up behind a candidate so they don't have to address anything important.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Democrats should get rid of the Socialists, Enviro-Radicals, and Hollywood liberals if they want to clean up their party.
Sure, why not. The Radicals and the Sharon Stones are few and noisy. But which Socialists? Where are they? Last time I checked, Labor Unions were cut off at the knees. If anything, corporate capitalism is unhinged.
Take a look at many of Richard Nixon's domestic accomplishments during his presidency, he seems positively pinko even by today's Democrat standards. The shift to the right has been so massive in the United States that even right-leaning moderates (such as HRC) are regarded by the "general populace" (the proverbial "boiling frogs") as pseudo-socialists, and with each right-wing "victory", the "pinko bar" shifts along ever further in their eyes, until they're decrying reds in their beds for the most absurdly microscopic details, even as they ignore the fact that their children are blissfully sucking on Chinese toys with lead paint, which BTW entered the United States unimpeded and unchecked, all for the sake of (all together now:) Capitalism.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty