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TechnoratiBarack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack.
Yes, just like former maverick John McCain, who has refashioned himself as a mindless rubber stamp for the most inane policies of the miserably failed Bush administration. Both candidates are embracing, rather than challenging, the fundamental irrationality of Bush's "war on terror," which substitutes hysteria for rational analysis in appraising the dangers the country faces.
Terrorism is a social pathology that needs to be excised with the surgical precision of detective work, inspired by a high level of international cooperation, the very opposite of the unilateral war metaphor that recruits new generations of terrorists in the wake of the massive armies we dispatch. At a time when we desperately need a president to remind us we have nothing to fear but fear itself, we are increasingly being treated to a presidential campaign driven by fear.
Both candidates supported the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has everything to do with violating the basic freedoms of our citizens and nothing to do with making them safer. There was no shortage of alarming intelligence warning the Bush administration of the impending 9/11 attacks, but rather an utter lack of competency in evaluating the abundance of evidence.
To use the failure of the president to pay attention to his daily-briefing warning of an impending attack as an excuse for shredding the fundamental rights of our citizens is appallingly illogical. Providing legal protection to the government and the telecommunications giants for unfettered spying on the people does not represent the change we desperately need.
Nor does the battle of the warmongers that has dominated the discussion of foreign policy in the past week. Obama has one-upped McCain's bluff to win in Iraq by raising the prospect of an even more deadly quagmire in Afghanistan. If his goal was to remind us that Democrats have been more often the party of irrational wars than the Republicans, he has succeeded all too well.
Whereas Dwight Eisenhower refused to wage war against Vietnam and Cuba, it was John Kennedy, that charmer of change, who launched both of those military disasters. And then there was that crafty "progressive" Lyndon Baines Johnson, who in order to defeat Barry Goldwater, the right-wing menace of his day, lied about a nonexistent attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify escalating a war that killed almost 59,000 Americans and 3.4 million Indochinese.
Even less noticed is the responsibility of Democrats for the mess in Afghanistan, which provided the incubator for the 9/11 attacks. It was under Jimmy Carter, highly admired as an ex-president, that the specter of modern Islamic fanaticism erupted, largely as a monster of our own creation when we supported Muslim fanatics in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, when asked in a January 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur whether he regretted "having given arms and advice to future terrorists," replied: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
I was reminded of that horrid stain on the record of Democratic stewardship of our foreign policy while cleaning out my garage last week. I came across a 1996 press release from the publisher of "From the Shadows - The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War," written by current Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the ultimate insider, who was on Carter's National Security Council staff. The publisher's book promo boasts that thanks to Gates, who ran the CIA for many years, we learn of "Carter's never-before-revealed covert support to Afghan mujahedeen-six months before the Soviets invaded."
In short, the Democratic president baldly lied to us when he justified support for the Muslim fanatics in Afghanistan who were battling the secular government in Kabul as a necessary Cold War response to a Soviet invasion. That Gates' account is accurate was affirmed in a blurb for the book by none other than Brzezinski, hailing it as "a most impressive achievement ... especially pertaining to the U.S. policy on Afghanistan."
It is hardly reassuring that Brzezinski has resurfaced in presidential politics, this time as an occasional adviser to Barack Obama, or that there is talk that Obama, in a burst of bipartisan enthusiasm, might ask Gates to stay on as defense secretary.
At this point, I throw up my hands and plead with the candidate who I hoped would be that much-needed agent of change: Please prove me wrong.
Robert Scheer is author of a new book, "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America."
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C.
132 Comments so far
Show AllQuestion:
Stargeezer posted a comment bout REVOLUTION "REVOLUTION is the only answer left! We alone hold the power to make real and substantive change" and i read people on this site and others always talking about revolution. The question I would like to pose for all of you is; if you could have a revolution, what kind of a revolution would it be? How would you go about accomplishing it?
How often does each of us practice telling people what they need to hear, rather than being polite/ convenient? so long as we all do this.. the collective people of the country will continue to fall sway to the politician who tells them what they want to hear. We need to get used to hearing hard truth ( things we would prefer to deny/ ignore), and learn that the truth isn't hard to deal with- only then will we start to demand it of and from our leaders and politicians.
change starts with us. that is literal.
If his campaign is successful, Barack Obama will do everything in his power to set things right in this country. You cannot hope for or ask for more than that.
I decided six months ago that I'm too old to vote for war anymore. Just seems too immoral to vote for someone who may give us Americans better health care and a tame Supreme Court judge when the price is killing thousands of innocents in other countries. Also, the time is too late to vote for someone who won't take decisive and massive steps to reverse the ecological disaster that is surely coming. Anything short of the scale Gore talks about is suicidal.
So I'm voting Green.
As for the notion that Obama can take my vote for granted because I never could vote for McCain: I may simply stay home in November rather than vote for either of the two major pro-war, pro-capitalist candidates. Maybe I can rouse some energy to go to vote for Nader or McKinney, but in truth I might as well sit out the election given the direction it's going. Why encourage the bastards? The Democrats need to learn that they must earn our votes and not take them for granted. Why vote for Obama when he is on record for (a) keeping substantial numbers of troops semi-permanently in Iraq and (b) killing more people in Afghanistan? I see little sense in voting for Obama at this juncture. I'm still to be persuaded that a vote for McKinney or Nader is worth bothering.
Kman: what follows is a political lesson taken from politics 101. The hegemony asserted by the status quo parties have worked to keep both McKinney and Nader of as many state ballots as they can. Last year Nader brought ligigation against the Democratic (an oxymoron by the way) to expunge Nader from as many states as they could. Nader will get on about 45 ballots this year, I am not sure what the numbers are for Mckinney. I will be voting for which ever one gets on the ballot in my state. If they are both on the ballot, i will be voting for McKinney. If the Greens get 5% of the vote nationwide that would assure the TRUE PROGRESSIVES a place at the table. Because we currently have no place at the table with Obama as his vote on FISA and his environmental record/agenda indicate. Does that answer your question, son?
rasmus, is there an echo in here? Or is it just a broken record? But thanks for the belly laugh, I will be laughing all the way to the voting booth when I cast my vote for Nader or Mckinney.
Instead of listening to what Obama pays lip service to, why don't you check out his record? Obama is an actor much like Ronnie Raygun was. Man, it is all about marketing and they are selling you a brand. Waks Up!
If you desire, see Obama¹s complete Berlin speech on video at:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaroadblog/gGxyFs
While not thrilled with some of the O'man's recent rhetoric or positions, I do try to keep Lincoln in mind. the L-man was smart enough to be cagey both before and after he was elected - keeping certain parts of his agenda to himself, until he could actually expect a win.
Plus, even a person of high integrity has to be very, very saavy to win the presidency. A true leader will bring the people along at a pace they can tolerate. It seems likely that he's saying some stuff to reassure many - that he is not O'Sama's poodle, or a radically racist Black Panther, or a naive, wet-behind-the-ears kid --- and this means initially using language that people are familiar with - like "war on terror."
Given the dumbness and immaturity of Americans - voters Are (and have been) quite vulnerable to the Repulsigan's propaganda machine. He can't afford to step into that trap.
If he is going to win he needs to begin to crush McCain now - not allowing the Old Man to gain any sort of momentum, which means Mr. Oh! needs to - in certain areas - out flank the right, while showing he's tough enough to handle our "dangerous world."
People want a "Big Daddy" to protect them from the big, bad wolf out there ("The ENEMY").
He's smart enough to realize this...and also to realize that if the public has any chance of growing, becoming more knowledgable, and more mature - it is going to take some time (4-8 years).
And, if he has a long term goal of uniting the country (and beyond) he Must meet people where they are Now (not two years from now, etc).
But first he has to get elected.
It seems Obama supporters like to read Robert Scheer's work. However, they can't seem to concentrate on what Scheer is saying here. Scheer is saying that Obama is adopting a policy that's not much different from John McCain's or George Bush's - an insane policy based on fear, militarism and needless death.
Scheer is also citing the poor record of the Democratic Party is supporting such wars over the years, although Repugs should get equal billing, I'd say.
Still, some posters above say that Obama is the kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being you can find on the planet. So, why does Obama want to drop bombs on Pakistanis and Afghanis?
Why insult people who seek an alternative to this madness?
The loyalist Dems are just plain wrong that there is no alternative. You'll see choices on election day right there on the ballot in front of your eyes. As for winning, it's not everything, especially given two candidates with murderous intent and equal contempt for the Constitution.
My question to loyalist Dems is this: What does it mean to vote for someone when you presumably don't agree with the candidate's ideas? Once the guy is elected, he's received a mandate to carry out those ideas and he can't be dislodged for another four years. So, why would you agree to throw your vote away on someone you don't support on the theory that the candidate will bend to your will once elected to office? It makes no sense, and it's never happened in the history of this country.
The time for pressure is now. That's why McCain softened his war rhetoric.
Loyal Dems, are you following your theory right now and writing to candidate Obama, telling him his Afghanistan policy is wrong? Why are you waiting? He'll only respond when elected?
If you are writing to him, Obama isn't hearing your appeals. He's gone to the right wing. And by the way, he just trashed your Fourth Amendment rights.
Stop cowering and pushing the button for a machine that doesn't give a rat's ass about you. A party that won't protect the Constitution. When people wake up from their fears and vote their conscience, only then can change occur.
Boy, did Mr. Scheer get fooled. Obama was never for change. Just what, exactly, has this guy ever done that has signalled that he is for any kind of meaningful change. His whole damn career has been about sucking up to corporate power?
We are screwed when critics like Robert Scheer fall for a faker like Obama.
"A vote for Nader or McKinney is our Collective Voice SPEAKING OUT against this abomination."
So tell us, when the hell are you some of you lefties actually gonna make a decision on which one you will vote for? Is it McKinney or Nader? You can't vote for both. The last time I checked American election law, I think it stated you can only vote for ONE!! Come on. Pick one. Why is this so hard?
The left wingers of CommonDreams are looking more and more like cranky out-of-touch whiners because of their continual criticism of Obama.
25 people showed up for a McKinney speech on the same day 200,000 show up for Obama in Berlin. What does that say? How long before world opinion will trash the American left wing for being such clueless purist dorks.
Thank you Mr Zimmerman:
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'
susan parker--Right On! You go girl. I am with you all the way.
Ralph Nader and the Republican party are the only beneficiaries of Ralph Nader's perpetual candidacy. He just wants to keep his organization alive. He knows he will never be elected and he doesn't want to be. Barack Obama is the closest thing you will ever see to an absolutely exemplary human being. There is a woeful shortage of good people in politics. The world will be a much better place if he is elected President. He can't be a great President unless he takes office. That's just the way it is. You have to win the election first.
If you vote Nader, you will help McCain.
If McCain wins, you will be lucky if there is any country left to return to the people.
Common Dreams has been a hotbed of third party activism for the last 3 presidential elections ... quite possibly longer.
Being lectured about how it's "throwing away your vote" or constitutes a vote for the non-Democratcy-Party candidate have been argued and argued... and, at least in me, elicit a "go teach your grandma to suck eggs" response. I've been voting third party about half the time for the last almost 40 years ... oh, and IF I vote for Obama he will be, I reckon, at least my 4rd "black" presidential candidate.
These folks running around calling anyone who disagrees with them a REPUBLICAN (ferchrissakes) are making their ignorance of this site and "left wing" and/or "progressive" poltics extraordinarily apparent ... I'm not your mother. I don't care if you're upset.
third party votes have their place in primaries and in grassroots political organizing. Currently, a third part vote in the US general election is totally irrelevant.You might be aghast, demoralized ,delusional ...but that is reality. If presented with no real choice as far as one is concerned, vote or don't vote,make a "statement" by a third party vore, but don't be deluded into thinking that is anything meaningful as fas as the immediate and medium-term (as far as I can see) outcomes. The real work has to be done in preparation before the general election;if you can get to the general with a viable candidate,then you can have an impact. Otherwise, I get tired of the tireless implorings of demoralized third party sympathesizers (I am one myself) who implore us to make meaningless general election thiry party votes.
JLOCKE123 -----re your 7/23 7:12pm rejoinder
Thanks for reading my post with something other than surface assumptions.
In response you asked ...are we better served by showing [Obama]that it is possible to Just Tell the Truth?
I would answer: we are served by voting for a progressive alternative to Obama if we perceive him to be a complete fake.
If you believe he's sufficiently real, then presumably you would also understand that the System is never going to change overnight, and grant him a degree of wiggle room to get elected and begin real reforms.
None of us who so far give Obama the benefit of the doubt, know for certain that he's sufficiently real -- so it's a risk, no doubt about it. But we ought to know that in the present situation, any genuine progressive would have to be a smarter strategist and campaigner than Nader or McKinney, in order to unify and expand the Left or get elected president.
JAMEER 7/24 11:12am post: "is there any chance.... in the not too distant future that...in terms of understanding American politics, the Left will grow up?"
Let me hazard an answer: Not as long as the people who comprise the American Left remain the equivalent of political convenience store consumers, wanting only instant solutions and refusing to acknowledge the prerequisite of patient, on the ground, systematic organizing.
Progressives! It's counter-productive to be rude. We want the same things, we have different ideas on how to get there. Can we have a respectful dialog here? Otherwise we fall into the trap the two-parties have laid for us. Divide and shrink the peace movement. Here's the picture I see:
Obama: Obama makes very pretty speeches. Obama has voted almost entirely with the Bush agenda. He voted repeatedly to continue the illegal, bloody and brutal war against Iraqis, will increase troop levels in the Middle East, will stay until the job of fighting terrorists is done, voted to protect the telecoms from illegal spying against Americans, vows to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel, supports AIPAC, voted against putting caps on what corporations can charge in interest on loans, will keep Blackwater mercenaries, is in favor of nuclear power ....
McCain: Same as above only he says he'll be fine if fighting Middle East "terrorists" takes 100 years. Truly scary, isn't it? Well, that's the plan, folks. Scare 'em good!
Truth is (and we know this through experience), the two-parties collude to ensure the corporate agenda goes on. These people don't work for us, they work for the money. The agenda will be the same, no matter which party wins. Everything else is pure trickery and rhetoric (lovely as it sometimes sounds). How much evidence do we need?
Collusion: The Dems have played their part nicely and now must be rewarded. It's their turn to "lead." The two-parties have manufactured this election so that it will be a close one. That will keep progressives in fear of a McCain win and keep them from supporting and building sane, progressive alternatives.
If McCain wins as a result of Obama's sell out, you know who will be blamed? Not the corporate sellout but the voters who want, finally, to be able to vote their conscience. It's slick, nasty, political trickery. Supporting it, for me, would be unconscionable.
It's time to bail from the sold out Democrats. It's time to use our COLLECTIVE VOICES at the ballot box. It's all we have left.
A vote for Obama is a vote for corporate ruled America and more war.
A vote for McCain is a vote for corporate ruled America and more war.
A vote for Nader or McKinney is our Collective Voice SPEAKING OUT against this abomination.
stupid,ignorant, arrogant,icompetent, evil are among a long list of adjectives
one can aptly apply to American government over the last 8 years (and before that too). Bush and the Republican party are most responsible for this; however the Democratic party is largely a codefendant. However, the most reprehensible cohorts are the American people themselves who continue to support and be associated with these criminals.Anyone who willingly associates with the Republican label is part of the dastardly tribe. So anyone even considering McCain is an evil idiot. Anyone voting for Obama and not recognizing it as a desperate vote for hope, notwithstanding his co-opting by the shameful Democratic party is delusional as well.Disappointingly, it all points to whether the democratic process itself is able to work in the interest of the population interests as a whole. It begs the question whether human beings are advanced intellectually and socially and morally enough to govern in their collective versus tribal and persponal interests.Vote the lesser evil;vote Obama;hope for the best,a "baby" step; don't be too disappointed if all we get is more of the same.A third party vote is largely irrelevant. Better to vote McCain in a "shock" strategy to let things get so bad that people will truly demand a real "change" candidate next time, or the time after that, or after that ....
rasmus, Obama is a piece of trash, bought and paid for by yours and his corporate handlers. Your self righteousness is appalling and your ignorance of Obama's record astonsihing in scope. Denial fuels your life lad, wake up!
Obama had me there for awhile. Gotta give him credit. He's quite an orator. However, an orator does not a leader make. Obama lost my vote when he voted for FISA. There are some compromises you just don't make. That & his pandering to Israel tell me that he will be another corporate NWO weenie. Why not vote for McCain? I tell you there's no difference.
Ralph Nader and the Republican party are the only beneficiaries of Ralph Nader's perpetual candidacy. He just wants to keep his organization alive. He knows he will never be elected and he doesn't want to be. Barack Obama is the closest thing you will ever see to an absolutely exemplary human being. There is a woeful shortage of good people in politics. The world will be a much better place if he is elected President. He can't be a great President unless he takes office. That's just the way it is. You have to win the election first.
If you vote Nader, you will help McCain.
If McCain wins, you will be lucky if there is any country left to return to the people.
rasmus11 July 24th, 2008 7:25 am
"If you vote Nader, you will help McCain."
That is to make the arrogant assumption that Obama 'OWNS' my vote, not me. The truth is that if I vote for Nader, which is highly likely, that I will help Nader and the country. How you may ask will my voting for Nader help the country? Because the sooner people realize that voting for either of the two major parties is killing the country, the sooner we can get real representation and return the country to the people.
Lobo Gris
Does that include you?
The only voice I need to listen to (unlike the herd) is my own conscience.
Amusing that not one person has responded to my point that Chomsky and Zinn advocated voting for Nader in 2004 only if you live in a "swing" state.
Lots of people having tantrums. Not many people making points or arguments.
What is the evidence that a Gore or especially swift boat war-criminal Kerry would have done anything differently aside for the purely stylistic?
Clinton still has more war victims staining his hell-bound soul than Bush does.
Gore...Kerry...now Obama. As long as the Democrats - particularly the presidential candidates continue to not "get it", they deserve to lose.
Period.
Is there any chance, at some point in the not too distant future, that, in terms of understanding American politics, the Left will grow up?
Scheer writes as if there is no such thing as politics. Same kind of stupid and immature nonsense that gave us Bush instead of Gore and Bush instead of Kerry. Too goddamned much self-righteousness.
jpa
Come on. I would think any progressive who is well-read would have long ago recognized that the Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Complex (MIIC) does not serve the president but instead the president serves the MIIC. And if that president steps out of line, it is curtains, one way or another. And, if by some miracle, at some point in the future the knee-capping by the corporate media proves insufficient to keep a true progressive from getting elected, the MIIC would "take care" of the true progressive in a New York minute.
How deep is the brainwashing that some still expect the US to be a representative democracy after all we have witnessed over the past couple of decades?
The best we can do is to apply what pressure we can so that the sum total of pressure is sufficient to ensure the US hegemon declines slowly and quietly and does not start a world-wide conflagration along the way to bankruptcy and irrelevance.
I vow to only vote for alternative party candidates (Greens in particular) in all elections.
The U.S. is a terrorist nation - this bears repeating: the U.S. is a terrorist nation. Acknowledge first, then change it (see first sentence).
I sincerely hope that Obama supporters will change their hearts and vote outside the one-party system.
I sincerly hope that McCain supporters will change their hearts and vote outside the one-party system.
A vote outside the system is NOT a vote for McCain.
We have to support true progressives regardless of their ability to raise money, get elected, or even if we like them or not.
There is no such thing as changing the system from within.
Increased percentages of alternative party candidates will help us "win" a more progressive agenda in the long run. We can only think in terms of the long run, just as conservatives did decades ago.
If carefully analyzed, the argument of Democratic Party Apologists (DPAs) and their appeal to progressive voters really comes down to this:
- It is impossible for any candidate who would honestly and forthrightly espouse progressive positions on the issues to be elected to high office in the United States of America.
- Or, in other words, regardless of any individual candidate's actual intentions, the only "electable" candidates are those who promise to fulfill the neo-conservative agenda set forth by USA Incorporated, AIPAC, etc.
- Therefore, if you don't actually want that neo-conservative agenda to be fulfilled, your only hope is to vote for the candidate you believe to be the best liar and most likely betrayer of the promises made during the election campaign.
- Having thus endorsed a "representative" governement on the basis of the only political agenda that the "greatest democracy on earth" allows, you can then continue to hope in vain, and despite all prior experience to the contrary, that it may be altered by some miraculous post-election transformation.
And some people accuse me of cynicism. Actually, it's more like fatalistic fascination with a neighbor's self-destruction. I see little realistic reason for any hope beyond wishful thinking, but good luck anyhow.
WHAT?
WHO HIJA___D
2 FUNE
only Cons/Shills/Insiders/masterminds push the Official Version of WTC 1,2, AND 7,
Which is theory
very bad, comical, impossible theory
you see
facts belie all of it
1)in Chicago Merc PUT OPTION 90% ABOVE AVERAGE WHERE PLACED on both Airlines
2)20 YEARs of annual HIJ___K exercises for October were suddenly (w/o explanation moved to Sept 11) hmmmmmm is thath the same morning???
3) satellite images show HEAT coming from the Pile months later ie 43,200 hours after the building fell even 99,900 hours after they fell.
4) key people REFUSED THAT'S RIGHT REFUSED TO TESTIFY UNDER OATH.... HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
3)
telling the people what they want to hear.. is not leadership.
I can relate to Scheer's sentiments because every discussion I have with Obama supporters ends with me saying "I hope to hell that he proves me wrong". It's hard to see how that will happen while he is saber rattling with Iran, kissing AIPAC's ass, "talking real tough" with Afghanistan, promising to expand the faith based religious program, voting to pass laws that will increase government spying power and giving immunity to the telecom companies which just about assures that Bush will never be held accountable for trampling the constitution, and also praising Reagan whenever he gets a chance.
Summary of a future Obama administration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQ7-MxLPus
"Terrorism as a social pathology..."
I, for one, do not see it as a pathology. It is closer to "Don't tread on me." Is that a pathology? Is it really pathological to commit ones self to the concept that there are bullies in this world who take what they want through their control of the laws and the money, and that getting their attention for a conversation about civilized behavior requires violence?
You can be patient and you can vote, and you can be mature and responsible and you can vote and you can, decade after decade, shake your head in disbelief and you can vote and you watch as your life edges towards your personal mortality and you vote.
Not one substantive progression beyond Roe vs. Wade and it's corresponding liberty, to a degree, for women, for 60 years.
The pathetic "terrorists" that yanked this tooth out of merry old England's mouth sure as hell would not have waited, nor would they have accepted this Congress as being representative.
So just what is pathological about demanding what is your national birthright when a Texas, Connecticut, "tinhorn" decides to make "might right."
My belief was, and is, if a good Democrat, or third party alternative, had been elected and taken office in 2000, September 11, 2001 would never have happened,...
But I guess we will never know, yet I do know what is "pathological."
To just keep believing your vote counts...
This is what Barack Obama said in 2002:
"What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."
Barack Obama, Chicago 2002
Once upon a time McCain was talking about staying in Iraq for 50 or 100 years. Obama seems to have negotiated that down to a conditional 16 months. What's not to be impressed about the guy?
If you vote Nader, you will help McCain.
Barack Obama is the closest thing you will ever see to an absolutely exemplary human being. There is a woeful shortage of good people in politics. The world will be a much better place if he is elected President. He can't be a great President unless he takes office. That's just the way it is. You have to win the election first. Let's just hope the crooks don't steal the election again.
Obama needs to be heckled and jostled by protesters as much as Bush and Corps, to flush out his true attitudes to voters. Better still would be a strong withdrawal of his voter support and a strong shift to Ralph Nadar, who needs a cheer squad of committed voters. Dump the demo-rats and dump the re-public-trash-cans. They have take the US of Z to soul and world destroying state of where it is today. Best of all would be to change the hearts and minds of the American people in power, regarding their experience of life and purpose in the Universe, and the shared relationships to everyone else. A political change requires intellectual and spiritual strength at the highest levels. Magical media heroes cannot save the day, as they only lead ahead of where the rich pack is going.
Anyone who votes for a known liar does not deserve that vote, but deserves to be a slave of liars. Do not justify lies with any excuses. If the voter does not have principles, then do not expect the politcians to have any.
American presidents are prisoners of their office, irrespective of their politics and what they say.
Read "The New American Militarism: how America is seduced by war" by A. Bacevich.
Nader would mess his pants if he ever won. He runs for the matching contributions he gets every 4 years to keep his organization running. Not saying he is not a good guy, but he is no hero. Anybody that tries to change the current system will end up JFK and RFK.
Don't worry, folks. These brillaint Democratic strategists have it all under control. After all, they're the ones who brought you presidents Mondale, Gore and Kerry. President Obama, the brilliant middle-of-the-road right-wing centrist is going to be merely icing in the cake. We're going to gleefully slide into an era of wonderful Republican-lite ecstasy. Trust your god Obama to do what's right for you morons. He's the second coming, don't you know?
.
I'll say it again…
We needed Ralph Nader as President in 2000.
We needed Ralph Nader as President in 2004.
We NEED Ralph Nader as President in 2008.
Never before as we do now
http://www.votenader.org/index.html
.
There's Obama in the capital of the nuclear-armed apartheid state, threatening Iran with war, and our yellow press is lapping it up.
CBSnews.com posted two agitprop articles on the need to attack Iran.
The only way out of this moral and existential dilemma we find ourselves in is to stop lying to each other. Here's a home truth: Obama waited all of one day after getting his delegates to sell us out. So much for his alleged angst and good intentions. Obama's part of the problem, not the solution, as are all those who refuse to face the facts.
With regard to voting: the best person to vote for is the person who you think is the best. It may seem like a good idea to vote for one of the two major candidates because no one else has a chance to win, but if you vote for the person you truly want, it sends a message. Even if the person for whom you vote does not win, the fact that s/he received votes sends a message.
If a large number of people are disillusioned or disatisfied with both McCain and Obama (let us call these the NOTA - None Of The Above), then as long as they vote for someone else they send the right message, and the message will be noticed. Thus, for NOTA the right tactic is not "refuse to vote," the right tactic is to vote for anyone but one of the two major candidates - especially if there are lots of NOTA.
So please vote in November; just be sure to vote for the person you think is the best.
The sure sign of a moron is the willingness to label anyone who won't fall in line with the Democrats a "Republican." (Are you listening, ezeflyer?)
It's hilariously ironic that a Dem Party apologist should call people to the left of the Dem Party "Republicans," because the reality is that there's no better friend of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. The DP rolls over on its back for the RP, defends it against impeachment, passes all its legislative initiatives, & refuses to expose it for the criminal organization that it is.
If anyone here should be accusing anyone else of being de facto supporters of Republicans, it's those to the left who should be doing the accusing, and the Dem Party apologists who should stand as the accused.
ezeflyer says: I never attack fellow progressives. I only attack filthy, lying, deceitful shills whoring for Republicans.
Hallelujah! He's another Obama critic!
biomusicologist said:
"Note to ezeflyer: Take your repugnant idea of censorship ("weed them out") and shove it up where the sun doesn't shine. Just because I have enough common sense to see through O-bomb-'em's BS, does not automatically make me a rethuglican. Obviously, you've been letting your brain rot with too much Faux Nooze characterizations of what is "left" and "right" in this !@#&cked up nation of ours.
Think about it. Or, just plain think."
Are you a lousy, sleazy, lying Republican shill?
If not, you may need to work on how to convince, instead of antagonize.
susanparker said:
"Gee — Ezeflyer you really personify the Obama supporter …
repetitive, dogmatic, paranoid, name calling, calling for censorship, intolerant of dissent, no respect for the opinion of others, oh, and defiantly proudly unengaged in the actual conversation going on around him/her/them."
I never attack fellow progressives. I only attack filthy, lying, deceitful shills whoring for Republicans. If you're not a shill, then you don't need to feel offended.
We progressives have to get used to something: we have lost in a huge way. American politics has been dragged so far to the right that the only choice we now have is between Neocon Plus and Neocon Lite. Perhaps Obama thinks he has to act tough and whup up on some Muslims to prove his patriotism and erase doubts about his religion. Maybe he's fallen under the spell of the Beltway Blowhards and K Street Kleptocrats. It's pathetic that we are reduced to pinning our hopes on a candidate far to the right of Eisenhower.
susanparker July 23rd, 2008 11:20 wrote:
"Gee — Ezeflyer you really personify the Obama supporter …
repetitive, dogmatic, paranoid, name calling, calling for censorship, intolerant of dissent, no respect for the opinion of others, oh, and defiantly proudly unengaged in the actual conversation going on around him/her/them."
Right on Susan! But you left out the words "irrational", and "lying-out-of-their-collective-asses-to-make-O-bomb-'em-appear-to-be-something-he-isn't."
"Hope"? Hopeless is a better cam-pain slogan for him.
ezeflyer writes:
"And that the Obamabashers are actually urging us to vote for McBush? "
WTF? I don't see anyone here advocating that. But I do see a lot of people (other than the delusional folks like yourself) basically saying that Obama = McBush.
When Robert Scheer writes:
"Barack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack."
Well....I want to vomit. When has he not been a political hack? He is all image, no substance, and has completely bamboozled ezeflyer and his non-thinking ilk.
Obama isn't the solution. He, and others like him are the problem.
Paraphrasing Gore Vidal....we will always have a one-party system with two right wings, as long as we continue to have people suck up the sort of convoluted nonsense passed off as logic by the likes of ezeflyer.
So what to do? Beyond revolution (and I don't see that happening anytime soon thanks to people like Obama and other dems who just rammed through the FISA bill and have continued to shred what's left of civil liberties and the constitution). The best scenario I can see (and I don't thing this is likely to happen, precisely because there are way too many delusional ezeflyers out there) is that a) people show their discontent by rallying behind a third party candidate (Ralph Nader comes to mind) so that b) he has enough support that there is no way that O-bomb-'em can win without the support of the third party (presumably Nader) candidate and his backers. O-bomb-'em then might then be forced to wake up and smell the coffee, and broker a deal to toss a few bones our way (give Nader a cabinet post, Environmental, FDA, or something) in order to insure his election. Then there might be someone in his administration to help keep him honest (or at least until O-bomb-'em sacks him).
Note to ezeflyer: Take your repugnant idea of censorship ("weed them out") and shove it up where the sun doesn't shine. Just because I have enough common sense to see through O-bomb-'em's BS, does not automatically make me a rethuglican. Obviously, you've been letting your brain rot with too much Faux Nooze characterizations of what is "left" and "right" in this !@#&cked up nation of ours.
Think about it. Or, just plain think.
Obama is another admitted Coke head. He does a little blow when he can get it.
Get it.
This is all a fraud. The election is not honest, anyway.
"They condescend to hurl such thunderbolts of righteousness, like Zeus, in their delusional presumption that they occupy the Olympian heights of the moral high ground. They are true believers."
I don't know about the rest of it, but this poetic language is quite eloquent. Keep it up LB
Gee -- Ezeflyer you really personify the Obama supporter ...
repetitive, dogmatic, paranoid, name calling, calling for censorship, intolerant of dissent, no respect for the opinion of others, oh, and defiantly proudly unengaged in the actual conversation going on around him/her/them.
Isn't it a little strange that Obama is getting bashed in a liberal forum almost exclusively? And that the Obamabashers are actually urging us to vote for McBush? That they are saying Obama and ALL Dems are as bad or worse than the devils in power? That they're ignoring the fact that voting for anyone but Obama guarantees another fascist, bloody, atrocious Republican Administration where everyone will lose the few constitutional rights remaining? Where we will lose the Internet to inform and communicate like this?
Free speech is a great advantage of the Internet. Repug shills can lurk in any progressive site that lets them. But this is getting ridiculous.
Maybe CD should begin to weed them out like Huffpost does. Let them post on their own sites where progressives won't go.
They're easy enough to recognize. Just mention Obama and they ooze out and smear him like a pack of slugs.
yes, "to thine own self be true and thou cans't be false to no man"
I know I --- do not do not do not --- want another actor ... a simulator ... a pretty face ... a showman ... a spokesmodel ... a front ... -- and no, I don't like being asked to WAIT (?) until it's SAFE (?) to find out what's behind the mask.
Seriously -- would you buy a used car from this man?
franpierce July 23rd, 2008 8:44 pm
"[Obama] has to get elected first! If he just spouted all the liberal things we want him to, he'd never get elected."
It's not a question of "spouting" liberal things; it's a question of a post-nomination shift right that is a) unnecessary, b) repudiates the Iraq position that got progressive support, and, thus, the nomination, and c), that, in so doing, takes the progressive vote for granted.
Democrats will do this in every election - take progressive votes for granted and shift right - unless they fear losing that vote.
I can't predict the future with any assurance of accuracy. I therefore don't imagine that I can know by how much, if at all, and if at all in what ways, Obama's presidency would affect the country differently from McCain's. I do think that there are some things that can be known, and I'm frightened by them. What I find most frightening is the idea that although it was unacceptable for Bush as a candidate to lie about what he would do as president it's somehow acceptable, wise and necessary for Obama to do so. I can see no basis for this view. If a substantial proportion of voters are given reason to conclude that there is no way to know from what a candidate says what the candidate would do if elected, our system of self-governance will collapse. Secondly, I cannot see on what basis earlier posters maintain that Obama is "an essentially good man", or that an "agony may now be what is happening in . . . [his] soul", so that once elected he will "do the right thing" (nor, as I've said above, how even one claims that it is "OK" for "progressives" to lie to get elected but not for "conservatites" to do so, anyone can think that self-governance can continue if candidates -- whether "progressives" or "conservatites" -- get elected on the basis of lies). Nor do I see on what basis previous posters contend that Obama must lie to the American electorate, pretending to take his current positions, if he's to have a chance of winning. In fact the American electorate by over 80% ("Jewish voters" by 90%) now consistently tell pollers that "America is on the wrong track". To whom exactly must Obama make this pretense? And finally, to criticize Obama for the positions he is now, after the primaries concluded, taking is in no way to ask for "some manner of political magician or Christ-like figure". It's simply to ask for a candidate to give voters some rational basis on which to expect that if elected he'll act in a way that will make our -- and the world's - situation better, not worse. Obama is not doing that.
Little Brother -- I'm not sure if you've visited the letters section attached the Juan Cole's piece on Salon today...
Pod people. Born yesterday. Follow the Leader.
and really really really lame assertions and "arguments." Are the followers at this point more or less "opportunistic" than the candidate? Remind me of Avon or Amway salespeople. They're not listening.
I may go on a posting hiatus, but y'know I feel so resentful that places I have visited and posted at for long time have been hijacked, deliberately, by people who feel no need to "add to the conversation"... mostly they just interject and run away ... or stay to whine.
Don't be so naive! He has to get elected first! If he just spouted all the liberal things we want him to, he'd never get elected.
Take a chill and have a little faith - I believe that this is an essentially good man - we can ask for no more in a candidate. In a president, yes, then we can ask for brilliance, leadership, creativity, daring, courage, statesmanship, diplomacy, etc., etc.
But let's get him elected first!!!!!!!
From another blog - but maybe pertinent. excuse me in advance
Speaking of warmongering ....
What has either candidate had to say about provocative missile installations in Czech Republic and/or/not Poland?
Here is the Russian answer that has yet to appear in US media. I wonder why, hmmmmm?
US general warns Russia on nuclear bombers in Cuba
07-23-2008, 03h35
WASHINGTON (AFP)
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?ID=242973
A history of bombing innocent civilians and crashing five planes, not well enough unfortunately, has been for McCain reduced to the easier to understand tag of "war hero", and has resulted in his pathological desire to bomb people, or at least kill them with nicotine.
Similarly another low-flier is the much beloved Bush, who thought it best to guard Texas from the yellow peril, that is waiting for them over here in case they got past those fighting them over there so that we didn't have to fight them over here and we did have to fight them over here after all. Whatever, he was ready; or he was if they could keep him sober.
And then consider 9/11. Terrorism? Or poor piloting skills?
My question to Obama is this: Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations?
susanparker, you speak for me!
There's about a photon's width of daylight between us on the prospect of experiencing a twinge of hesitation, regret, doubt, or guilt on Erection Day.
I won't know what I'll do until I get into the booth, but it won't be susceptible to self-recrimination.
In part, because another thing that his supporters REALLY do not understand is that hurling wrathful, or sulky, accusations and imprecations-- If you vote for anyone but Obama, you're REALLY voting for McCain! The blood of whatever will be on YOUR hands!-- is merely irksome and off-putting.
They condescend to hurl such thunderbolts of righteousness, like Zeus, in their delusional presumption that they occupy the Olympian heights of the moral high ground. They are true believers. Their arguments and attitudes are built like a brick shithouse; they believe themselves moral, sensible, practical; they self-identify as "realists" and "pragmatists" so they have no qualms or reservations about resorting to mere derision or cheap snark to repel thoughtful criticism.
For all of their compulsion to express attributions of madness or badness, and freely spit out terms like "ninnies", "purists", etc., they squeal like stuck pigs when someone returns the favor.
Their arguments are typically simplistic mousetraps baited with nothing more than their preferred talking points.
Other than that, I'm fine with them. ;)
Blah, blah, blah.........Obama sold out. Just like Chomsky said: "The US public is irrelevant".
Nader may be our last hope.
Peter Montana
oh, I think Obama's over the brink -- and his supporters are way outta line just about everywhere I encounter them, rude, dogmatic, illogical, ahistorial, very "I don't know if it's art but I know what I like" and they like Obama unconditionally because -- apparently -- the sky is falling and without an Obama victory in November, it will be the end of civilization as we know it and -- THEN - THEN - THEN -- he will show his TRUE COLORS ... and never must there be heard a discouraging word and the sky is not cloudy all day....
I find this so amazingly depressing. I'm just hoping that on election day Obama is so far ahead I can vote for McKinney or Nader (haven't decided) without a thought.
His supporters REALLY do not understand how their repetition, amplication and name-calling undermine whatever enthusiasm a doubter might have been able to muster for their candidate...
so depressing ... each week it just gets worse...
Just in case anyone here is interested in the 'real' Obama, what follows is his anti environmental record: not only is he a flip flopper and Hack but out to destroy the Earth on behalf of his corporate handlers in the coal, nuclear and bio fuel industries.
In May of 1998, Obama voted for a Bill condemning the Kyoto Treaty while in the Illinois Senate.
Obama pays lip service to the issue of environmental sustainability (no argument here) saying that climate change is "one of the greatest moral challenges of our generation." Yet while he was an Illinois state Senator he supported numerous Bills drafted on behalf of the Coal Industry according to legislative records. He also acknowledged his very strong support for coal during his run for the US Senate in 2004 by affirming in a speech, "there is always going to be a role for coal."
Furthermore, Obama's campaign has accepted contributions from the coal industry to the tune of $539,597.00 for both Presidential and Senate campaigns as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.
A key feature of Obama's environmental plan calls for "technologies to reduce coal emissions." But any authentic environmentalist will tell the scope of obfuscation in his statement: in the words of Meg Boyle (Global Warming Policy expert for Green Peace) recently said, "Those technologies are risky and expensive" and "They cannot deliver in time to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change." Nor are they support by the Coal Industry who would need to implement them to be effective. Obama's environmental agenda is what is called "green washing" by any authentic environmentalist. This differs substantially with the lip service environmentalists like Katrina.
Frank ODonnell, President of the non-partisan Clean Air Watch noted that Obama is "Trying to straddle two political irreconcilable positions: taking decisive action against global warming while keeping a healthy coal industry" and "Obama's record certainly suggests that environmentalists aren't going to be calling the shots in his Administration without input from the [coal] industry."
In the Illinois State Senate Obama cast the following votes:
1997, he voted to divert sales taxes to fund grants to reopen closed mines.
2001, Voted for legislation that offered 3.5 billion in loan guarantees to build coal fired power plants with no concomitant protections to control carbon emissions.
2003, he voted to allow 300 million in taxpayer backed bonds to build or expand coal fired power plants
In 2005 in the US Senate, Obama voted for a Bill opposed by most Democrats which contained 9 billion in Coal subsidies.
In 2007, Obama sponsored a Bill calling for 8 billion in subsidies to a technology to convert coal to liquid fuel which the Sierra Club said that liquid coal, "releases almost double the global warming emissions per gallon as regular gasoline."
Obama presidential campaign asserts his beholden view to coal, nuclear, and bio fuels. All inimical to our Earth Mother. Nuclear has never resolved the spent fuel problem, i.e., radioactive waste outlives the containers they are stored in by hundred of years, and the current political solution is to bury the waste. With regard to bio fuels, as more airable land transitions to higher paying crops for bio fuels, thus taking away land for food crops, food prices will soar, and world wide starvation increase. Bio fuels also create as many unsustainable results as fossil fuels.
Obama, like McCain are both anti environmentalists whose policy objectives will diminish life on planet Earth. Hope may get a lot of mileage in the belt way where Katrina feeds from the same polluted trough, but it has nothing to do with the reality of the Obama's anti environmental record.
Katrina knows absolutely NOTHING about sustainability and it is surprising to me that Gore even endorsed Obama given that his visonary proposals will fall on deaf ears in any Obama Administration predicated on Coal, Nuclear, and Bio Fuel. Katrina is leading all the sheeple toward the precipice.
_________________
new old lompoc July 23rd, 2008 6:45 pm "Politics is war by other means.
Politically, the American republic is in a civil (cold) war.
Just for sake of argument, assume that Obama is a well intentioned progressive candidate, who started out with honest ideals but now increasingly sees the depth of shit he thought he could vanquish simply by appealing to an electorate which is, however, now too confused and fearful to any longer know or affirm its own humans interests.
How would such a candidate ever gain the presidency -thereby to help nudge a de facto imperial system back toward democracy — if he too openly talked truth while campaigning; too openly flipped his finger at oligarchs who had multiple means to crush him as soon as they felt seriously threatened?"
good post, thanks.
You describe well the "agony" that may be resident in Obama's soul. In supporting him, do we reinforce the "spirit bending insanities" that keep America locked in the Republican/Democratic paradigm or are we better served by showing him, "a good and reasonably enlightened person", that it is possible to "Just Tell The Truth"?
"Would we tell the full, unvarnished truth about America's vile contradictions to a fearful, ignorant, confused and easily counter-manipulated electorate"
Boy, we Americans are just really ignorant. Amazing isn't it? We can't even find an epiphany when we need it.
: jcrumb
The vast majority of people can't withold their taxes from the government, its taken automatically via their paychecks.
What people can do if they want to protest and bring the capitalist machine to a grinding halt is to voluntarily become sub-prime.
Have you noticed the havoc the mortgage crisis is having on the efficient functioning of our government's machinery?
So how do you become sub-prime? Stop making your payments on your loans! If even 50% of this country's citizens voluntarily stopped making payments on their mortgage, car and credit card loans the financial markets would literally come to a halt.
The ONLY vote you have that will mean anything significant is to do whatever you can to put a larger wrench in the cog of the capitalist/militarist death machine.
The US borrows over $1 trillion/year to finance its current form of existence. And the foreigners buying our debt are starting to realize they are financing an obese, greedy, earth-destroying war machine. It may be that just their witholding of the mountain of money needed to finance our continued form of existence will be enough.
But if you want to accelerate the decay of our system then do your part to bring about its financial ruin.
Be sub-prime!
All you Obamapologists,
Explain to me exactly why Obama has to support the policies of what is probably the most despised administration in our history in order to get elected. In your explanation, you'll inevitably have to conclude that it's because what we, the people think is irrelevant. Which ultimately means that it really doesn't matter who sits in the Oval Office, because whomever is there has to dance to the tune of his corporate masters. So what difference does it make if McCain or Obama wins?
*everything
**Obama's
Got in a little late on this one. But, think of this:
The Obama shift was immediate. Right after the primary. My, my.
He shifted to becoming a 100% Isreal supporter, supporting AIPAC 100%, he is now supporting troops, evermore troops to Afghanistan...etc. And, say, how is his rhetoric on Iraq...doesn't quite sound the same now, does it?
What if his initial support and all his primary pushers were really and truly henchmen of Rove & Co? How easy it would have been to have rallied a bunch of us wanting change and have us cover up, by enthusiasm and pure naivete, the true nature and support of Obama. How easy for the Republicans to have subverted the whole election process so that now there are two Republicans running against each other.
The above is speculation but I have no other explanation for what has happened...Obama and McCain might as well be on the same ticket at this point...Well, maybe not for evertthing. I don't know about women's rights...McCain has certainly outdone himself in that area. But what is Obama "real take" on women's rights now? Has it shifted to the right of center as all the rest of his ideas seem to have?
What else am I not seeing??
Nemaste
Politics is war by other means.
Politically, the American republic is in a civil (cold) war.
Just for sake of argument, assume that Obama is a well intentioned progressive candidate, who started out with honest ideals but now increasingly sees the depth of shit he thought he could vanquish simply by appealing to an electorate which is, however, now too confused and fearful to any longer know or affirm its own humans interests.
How would such a candidate ever gain the presidency -thereby to help nudge a de facto imperial system back toward democracy -- if he too openly talked truth while campaigning; too openly flipped his finger at oligarchs who had multiple means to crush him as soon as they felt seriously threatened?
An actual battlefield general, tactically fighting a hot war against a totally ruthless enemy, would never be so stupid as to needlessly whip up the enemy's fears, indignations, and visceral energies during battle. And infinitely more such craftiness would be required if 'the general' was a political candidate for the highest office, who understood that his/her enemy was not external to the state but was in fact internal; was, in fact, the very state power he/she sought to administer and change, in defiance of its control by a behind-the-scenes oligarchy.
Before we condemn Obama as another hopeless sellout, we should ask ourselves what we would do if, as an honest progressive , we found ourself, personally, in his place.
Would we tell the full, unvarnished truth about America's vile contradictions to a fearful, ignorant, confused and easily counter-manipulated electorate -- in hopes of an epiphanic Publius Miraculum? Or would we try to say what needs to be said, in order to keep our election hopes alive, with the intention of using power for better ends once elected?
This agony may now be what is happening in Barack Obama's soul, if he is genuine; and we should let this same dilemma he may be experiencing play out and resolve in our own souls, each of us, before condemning him for not being some manner of political magician or Christ-like figure.
Personally, my values require that I never lie in the name of the truth in order to gain public office --- which is why I probably never rose above being a state legislator. I can't imagine what mind and spirit bending insanities must confront anyone who makes it to Obama's position -- again, assuming he was 'genuine' from the outset.
I do see lately, in Obama's eyes and in his quietly exhausted demeanor, though, what my gut tells me is a deep weariness at the maddness and seeming insuperability of what he now (probably) realizes he confronts.
My gut tells me that Obama is a decent and reasonably enlightened person -- but not sufficiently good and enlightened to now throw personal ambition/caution to the winds -- and Just Tell The Truth.
Headlines! Robert Sheer goes down on his knees!
I heard an eye opening debate last year with Robert Sheer vs. Ralph Nader. Nader, in my estimation, creamed him. One salient statement from Sheer - responding to a question from Ralph, and I'm not quoting but using my memory, you can google it for accuracy -
Nader: Robert, how long are you going to put your support behind a corporate party and candidate who betrays so many important aspect of progressive ideals. Where and when will you draw the line?
Robert Sheer answered that it would be the war. He would bail from the Democrat Party over the war.
Robert Sheer, you must now bail, not beg. It's unbecoming and besides, we need you in this fledgling movement of ours!
Vote Nader, 08!
He is not becoming this, he always was it. Plenty of people were telling you, but you just didn't want to hear. Obama is America's Bliar - you're making the same mistake we did.
Question for everyone:
In 2004, Chomsky and Zinn advocated voting for Kerry if you live in a "swing" state, and for Nader if you live in a "safe" state.
Anyone heard a similar/different opinion this year? I realize that they have both critiqued Obama- which is easy to do- but that's not what I am asking.
No change in this country was brought about by a politician. The grassroots became more vocal until it was impossible for the politicians to cross the public. It's how we go