The Greens' candidate (David Cobb, dude, NOT NADER!) will be happy to call Kerry to account for his own sins.
No disrespect to the Green Party, but Cobb is polling close to zero, at least in every source I could find (please correct me if i'm wrong. I've got nothing against Cobb, but he doesn't seem to have much support outside of Green Party loyalists). Even if we did have a fair threshold for participating in debates, Cobb would still have a hard time getting in. If we lowered the threshold to zero, then we'd have to allow every candidate, which would either stretch the debates to an unmanagable amount of time or cut the speaking time down to nothing. Either would make the debates even more useless than they already are (if that's possible).
Though I don't doubt your assertion that if Cobb was in the debates, he would take Kerry to task. I would be thrilled to see Cobb ask Kerry tough quetions instead of the canned BS we're in for come debate time.
Now they can send us to war on claims that they have photos of chemical weapons labs in whatever country. But of coarse we can't see them, the photos are all classified.
I would dearly love for either party to propose a candidate that is actually going to improve the quality of life for every US citizen -- without meddling in the lives of citizens of other countries....it has been strongly suggested that the last such candidate was John F. Kennedy.
JFK didn't avoid "meddling in the lives of citizens of other countries". Cuba and Vietnam come to mind. Anticommunist meddling is still meddling.
As for his religion, he kept that as quiet as possible due to the widespread fear at the time that he would be taking orders from the Pope. There used to be a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in this country.
Forget about abolishing the electoral collage, what about Instant Runoff Voting? Though I am not a Democrat, so many Kerry "supporters" I have talked to admit that they really would prefer Nader, but they don't want to waste their vote. Why do we allow the party machines to control our choices for president? We have 2 Ivy League silver spoon-fed pro-war blue blooded candidates to choose from. It's a shame people like Nader and Badnarik aren't even considered an option by most voters, but that's what happens with our current voting system.
Opensecrets.org is a great resource. It's also very depressing and may cause voter apathy - once you realize everyone is in on the take, it's hard to build up much enthusiasm for pulling the lever.
There's already a food-preperation device with USB - George Foreman USB iGrill. Guess it's only a matter of time before we see your WiFi ice cream machine.
The US media has just about the most independent and diverse media of any country.
Free in the sense that no one will break down their door and shoot them in the head for publishing a story.
Our media is "free" but it operates in an environment in which the results will be desirable to those in power. It's not in the corporate interest to have a truely independent and diverse media.
Propaganda doesn't have to come from official government sources or a Pravda-style outlet. It can be more subtle and complex in nature.
is that Congress can and probably will enact legislation which invalidates this.
Open Secrets has a good listing of campaign contributions - take a look, we're screwed whether it's Democrats or Republicans in office. The entertainment industry expects something in return for their investments, and if history is any indicator, they will get it.
This is pathetic. The literacy rate in Cuba is 97% (source: http://www.allyoucanread.com/literacy.asp?id=43). The fact that so many Americans don't even know where the Pacific Ocean is is depressing.
I would have to add that advertising probably doesn't cater to this demographic quite as much, as I would expect there is a strong correlation between poverty and illiteracy. And if you're that poor, how can you afford to buy all those products? The affluent seem plenty responsive to advertising, and they have the purchasing power to make it worth the ad firm's effort. Though this is just a thought, I don't have any supporting evidence.
And also like fascisim, since the Nazis were National Socialists, and we all know socialism is the same as communism.
I'm assuming there's some sarcasm here. Cause there was nothing socialist about the "National Socialists", that was just a trendy thing to call yourself at the time (pre cold war, remember?).
Dictatorships and socialism do not have to go hand in hand. You can be an anti-authoratarian socialist, they're not mutually exclusive. Capitalism and communism are economic systems, and dictatorship is an authoratarian method of rule. It can be applied to any economic system.
Besides, socialism is not nessecarily the same as communism. Then again I could just be missing your sarcasm.
Slashdot Mirror
No disrespect to the Green Party, but Cobb is polling close to zero, at least in every source I could find (please correct me if i'm wrong. I've got nothing against Cobb, but he doesn't seem to have much support outside of Green Party loyalists). Even if we did have a fair threshold for participating in debates, Cobb would still have a hard time getting in. If we lowered the threshold to zero, then we'd have to allow every candidate, which would either stretch the debates to an unmanagable amount of time or cut the speaking time down to nothing. Either would make the debates even more useless than they already are (if that's possible). Though I don't doubt your assertion that if Cobb was in the debates, he would take Kerry to task. I would be thrilled to see Cobb ask Kerry tough quetions instead of the canned BS we're in for come debate time.
meant to post that with extrans...
</tinfoil hat>
Now they can send us to war on claims that they have photos of chemical weapons labs in whatever country. But of coarse we can't see them, the photos are all classified.
JFK didn't avoid "meddling in the lives of citizens of other countries". Cuba and Vietnam come to mind. Anticommunist meddling is still meddling.
As for his religion, he kept that as quiet as possible due to the widespread fear at the time that he would be taking orders from the Pope. There used to be a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in this country.
Forget about abolishing the electoral collage, what about Instant Runoff Voting? Though I am not a Democrat, so many Kerry "supporters" I have talked to admit that they really would prefer Nader, but they don't want to waste their vote. Why do we allow the party machines to control our choices for president? We have 2 Ivy League silver spoon-fed pro-war blue blooded candidates to choose from. It's a shame people like Nader and Badnarik aren't even considered an option by most voters, but that's what happens with our current voting system.
Opensecrets.org is a great resource. It's also very depressing and may cause voter apathy - once you realize everyone is in on the take, it's hard to build up much enthusiasm for pulling the lever.
There's already a food-preperation device with USB - George Foreman USB iGrill. Guess it's only a matter of time before we see your WiFi ice cream machine.
Free in the sense that no one will break down their door and shoot them in the head for publishing a story.
Our media is "free" but it operates in an environment in which the results will be desirable to those in power. It's not in the corporate interest to have a truely independent and diverse media.
Propaganda doesn't have to come from official government sources or a Pravda-style outlet. It can be more subtle and complex in nature.
is that Congress can and probably will enact legislation which invalidates this. Open Secrets has a good listing of campaign contributions - take a look, we're screwed whether it's Democrats or Republicans in office. The entertainment industry expects something in return for their investments, and if history is any indicator, they will get it.
I would have to add that advertising probably doesn't cater to this demographic quite as much, as I would expect there is a strong correlation between poverty and illiteracy. And if you're that poor, how can you afford to buy all those products? The affluent seem plenty responsive to advertising, and they have the purchasing power to make it worth the ad firm's effort. Though this is just a thought, I don't have any supporting evidence.
I'm assuming there's some sarcasm here. Cause there was nothing socialist about the "National Socialists", that was just a trendy thing to call yourself at the time (pre cold war, remember?). Dictatorships and socialism do not have to go hand in hand. You can be an anti-authoratarian socialist, they're not mutually exclusive. Capitalism and communism are economic systems, and dictatorship is an authoratarian method of rule. It can be applied to any economic system.
Besides, socialism is not nessecarily the same as communism. Then again I could just be missing your sarcasm.