EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- 'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See
- As Death Toll Rises Beyond 500, Garment Factory Disaster 'Worst in World History'
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products
- Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education
- 'The Gilded Age' Statistics Corporations Don't Want Workers, or Anyone, to See
- Time for Big Green to Go Fossil Free
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
Popular content
Today's Top News
Obama by Default
The Republicans are a sick joke, and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice in the coming presidential election but Barack Obama. With Ron Paul out of it and warmongering hedge fund hustler Mitt Romney the likely Republican nominee, the GOP has defined itself indelibly as the party of moneyed greed and unfettered imperialism.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. (AP/Charles Dharapak)
It is with chilling certainty that one can predict that a single Romney appointee to the Supreme Court would seal the coup of the 1 percent that already is well on its way toward purchasing the nation’s political soul. Romney is the quintessential Citizens United super PAC candidate, a man who has turned avarice into virtue and comes to us now as a once-moderate politician transformed into the ultimate prophet of imperial hubris, blaming everyone from the Chinese to laid-off American workers for our problems. Everyone, that is, except the Wall Street-dominated GOP, which midwifed the Great Recession under George W. Bush and now seeks to blame Obama for the enormous deficit spawned by the party’s wanton behavior.
Without a militarily sophisticated enemy anywhere on the planet, the United States, thanks to the Bush-bloated budget, now spends almost as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the GOP honchos dare claim they are for small government even as their chosen candidate chomps at the bit to go to war with Iran.
They obviously learned nothing from the disasters of Bush the Second, who hijacked the tragedy of 9/11 to launch the most wasteful orgy of military spending in U.S. history in his failed effort to take out an al-Qaida enemy that had no significant military arsenal. That enemy was later eliminated by Obama, whom the Republicans still obstinately refuse to credit for accomplishing what Bush failed to. Can you imagine the explosion of preening self-congratulation that would have resulted if a GOP president had done the deed?
The red-ink deficits that had been stanched under Bill Clinton came to gush uncontrollably because of the swollen military budgets, compounded by the severe costs of the recession that occurred on Bush’s watch.
But the Republicans refuse to take ownership of the collapse resulting from their longstanding advocacy of radical financial deregulation that led to the derivatives bubble, hundreds of trillions of dollars of toxic junk, now a permanent, nightmarish feature of the world’s economy. Romney, who made his fortune through such financial finagling, even has the effrontery to call for more of the same and blame Obama’s tepid efforts at establishing some sane speed limits for the financial highway as a cause of our ongoing crisis.
So insanely gullible are Republican voters that they buy Mitt’s line that bailing out the auto industry to save the heart of America’s legendary industrial base was an example of big-government waste. Yet to them the almost unimaginable sum spent on the Wall Street bailout represents prudent small-government fiscal responsibility.
The incumbent president has his failings, but compared to Mitt Romney he is a paradigm of considered and compassionate thought. As Obama put it in a speech before a journalism group this week, we are saddled with a national debt “that has grown over the last decade, primarily as a result of two wars, two massive tax cuts, and an unprecedented financial crisis, [and] that will have to be paid down.” But instead of dealing with the causes of that debt, Romney has called for an increase in military spending, continued tax breaks for the rich and reversal of the very limited restraints on corporate greed that Obama managed to get through Congress. He has endorsed the House-passed Paul Ryan budget, which, as Obama noted, even Newt Gingrich once derided as “radical” and an effort at “right-wing social engineering.”
Such radicalism leaves Obama as the “moderate” choice in the coming election, defending centrist programs that Republicans in the past helped originate. Indeed, the big attack on Obama will involve what the Republicans call Obamacare—which was modeled in every important respect on Romneycare, enacted when the GOP candidate was governor of Massachusetts.
The overarching lesson of this primary season is that Romney and the Republicans he seeks to win over are incapable of embracing the very moderation that, particularly in the golden era of Dwight Eisenhower, defined the party. Instead, they are now a reckless force bent on destroying the essential social contract that has been the basis of America’s economic and social progress.
As Obama said Tuesday in addressing the editors and reporters: “... We’re going to have to answer a central question as a nation. ... Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well, while a growing number struggle to get by? ... This is not just another run-of-the-mill political debate. ... It’s the defining issue of our time.”
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
197 Comments so far
Show AllBefore you spit on JFK's grave, and legacy, in a tasteless, ignorant comment like this, try reading: "JFK & The Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters," by James W. Douglass.
"I have never liked Scheer. He is that white liberal from the 1960's reminiscent of JFK."
First of all, political definitions have been molded like Silly Putty over recent decades. What JFK stood for and tried to enact in his era is an altogether different "animal" than whatever it is you're linking so viciously with the castigation of "liberal" today. This type of hate speech is VERY indicative of right wing authoritarians. Too often I see "new names" show up to smear Chris Hedges, Medea Benjamin, and others.
If you have a BEEF with JFK, then document it with FACTS instead of trying to besmirch his name by linking it with Scheer and HIS particular errors in judgment today.
And "peerless" you're not.
"The incumbent president has his failings, but compared to Mitt Romney he is a paradigm of considered and compassionate thought."
Are you serious Bob? Tell that to those on the receiving end of a drone attack.......
Absolutely! At least a Romney presidency might actually lead to an effective opposition from the Democrats, something that never happened under Obama. They may be equally evil (I don't buy the lesser evil theory) but without opposition evil runs amok. Better deadlock than innocent dead civilians.
Here we go with the same-old "evil of two lessers" scenario. A rational voter does in fact have a choice--don't vote. Withhold consent from the whole corrupt edifice. It's the people who vote for Romney OR Obama who are not being rational.
You are a fool. There are many great differences. Look at all of our past Presidents. They all did good things. They all did bad things. They were all human. Some of us wrangle with our consciences in an attempt to truly have the lesser evil. Others, like you, abdicate responsibility. While I find that deplorable, I was once the same.
Those who vote for Obama harm this country more than those who do not vote at all.
I don't think not voting is particularly cowardly. Overwhelmed by despair, maybe, but not cowardly.
Voting for Obama is cowardly.
What if you are given no humane rational choices with any chances of gaining power? Would you have voted in Nazis German or the U.S.S.R., just because? Voting being a good idea presumes that there is an electable humane decent person to vote for who will makes life better for people, a precondition wholly unmet in the U.S.A. where the fusion of corporate and state power quite literally resembles Mussolini's fascism under both electable "mainstream" parties:
"Fascism operated from a Social Darwinist view of human relations. Their aim was to promote superior individuals and weed out the weak.[5] In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class.[6] Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."[7] Fascist governments encouraged the pursuit of private profit and offered many benefits to large businesses, but they demanded in return that all economic activity should serve the national interest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism
Yes I can vote for a Green, or Rocky Anderson, or a Libertarian, but they aren't going to win, so IMO really one is better serving real change by spending that day working on ones garden, or a food co-op, or a homeless shelter, etc, and doing some real good for the world, as opposed to participating in a process that gives legitimacy to various grades of evil, "lesser," and "greater," in some peoples estimation, though they look the same to me except on the 2nd tier issues of gun control and abortion.
I have voted BTW ever major election since the age of 18, but I doubt I'll bother this year, not voting is a statement too of no confidence in state capitalist imperialism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk
Boy, you're about as honest in your juggling of platitudes as you are in your defense of Monsanto and its killer crops.
Your post sets forth the pretense that nothing has changed. As if:
1. NDAA didn't essentially nullify all former rights and liberties of sovereign U.S. citizens
2. A mega-wound to the Gulf of Mexico didn't necessitate an altogether different approach to regulating Big Oil
3. A mega-wound to Japan, at Fukushima, didn't necessitate an altogether different approach to regulating Nuclear Power
4. Wars enacted on patently false pretenses do not demand legal accountability
5. Torture was always legal and given a pass in our "nation of laws"
6. Wealth had not so dangerously aggregated to the top 1% while unions were under threat, and the best jobs gutted when not sent overseas
7. Nature was not everywhere around us imploding and sending Distress Calls
8. Public education were not under assault
9. Wall Street was not given a pass to continue its reckless games of craps played with taxpayers' money
10. Police were not cracking down on peaceful demonstrators
In other words, things have STEADILY gotten worse... and your little blanket platitudes are intended to HIDE the facts AND the truth.
Obama is complicit in ALL of the above.
"They all did good things. They all did bad things. They were all human. "
Profound, but in all fairness, not all humans will kill other people's children for empire or for any reason except perhaps self defense. Those who are prone to do these things shouldn't be egged on by our votes. They should be locked up, like any other criminal. Hypothetical: What if Jack the Ripper was Running for president against, say, Ted Bundy?
The great environmentalist, David Brower, made a powerful argument for maintaining and defending the core of any political/environmental cause, precisely because the core is where the gravity exists. When the core breaks up due to compromise and apologia, we are in danger of losing our gravity.
I'm racking my brain, but can't yet think of any historic case (U.S. or elsewhere) in which 40% or 60% or even 80% of population refusing to vote has, by itself, led to any useful change. Can you cite an example or two that will enlighten me?
Also, how does one make sure that the corporate media understands that those not voting are making a "statement", versus just being too apathetic or lazy or apolitical to care about voting? A serious question.
I still treasure my right to vote, and I always exercise it, even if it comes down to voting for a write-in candidate or a hopeless third-party candidate. Voting socialist seems like more of a "statement", to me, than not voting at all. In the latter case, you already have a lot of company, including for example countless obese white dudes in wife-beater t-shirts busy reading hunting magazines in their trailer homes. In the former case, you're going against the tide, and maybe emboldening others to join you next time around.
Always, always back to the "lesser of two evils" propaganda, eh, Scheer? There is no courage in your writing, only petulant rantings about Republicans abandoning "centrism" and Obama talking--always talking--about some "defining issue of our time." Shit. The wars he's waging, the assassinations he's ordered, the drones he's dropped, the body parts of infants he's made fly through the air in a mist of blood: those are "defining issues of our time."
As Glen Ford wrote at Black Agenda Report:
"The prevailing assumption on the Left is that Obama has good intentions. He intends to the Right Thing – or, at least, he intends to do better than the Republicans intend to do. It’s all supposed to be about intentions. Let’s be clear: There is absolutely no factual basis to believe he intends to do anything other than the same thing he has already done, whether Democrats control Congress or not, which is to serve Wall Street’s most fundamental interests.
But, the whole idea of debating Obama’s intentions is ridiculous. It’s psycho-babble, not analysis. No real Left would engage in it."
http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil
Let's finally break our addiction to the two-party system. Refuse the addictive rhetoric of the Robert Scheers and other so-called liberals. Let's vote our consciences and vote with courage. Any third party candidate but Obama. Do not reward four years of evil and betrayal. You'll feel better about yourself if you do that one simple thing.
" Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well, while a growing number struggle to get by?" The answer given by Romney is yes, certainly--by glorifying wealth, success and entrepreneurial activity we will reinforce the ethos that has made us great as a nation and punish the laggards whose only ambition is to get by on the government dole. 47% of Americans agree and will vote for him. The opposition doesn't really disagree but wants to put a slightly kinder face on social Darwinism. In past columns Robert you have shown how insincere and hypocritical they are when they try to present an option. A truly alternative view of how we can grow and succeed as a nation has yet to be presented on the national stage and will not be until the present ideology plays itself out and brings this nation to ruin. Only then will a few of us sratch our heads and ask in puzzlement born of desparation, "What do we do now."
his pathetic screed underlines chris hedge's point that the liberal class is dead, and that u.s. gov't is no longer functioning in any sense of the term. those who have, who own, play out their meaningless roles, guarding what is "theirs" as the four horsemen mount...
No sale, Scheer. To vote for a monster like Obama (or Romney) is to commit moral suicide.
Did somebody say Clinton? Hah. Under Clinton it was Robert Rubin's filthy gang of corporate front-men and swindlers who lit the fuse that triggered phase one of the economic implosion. It was Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary, who first devised the deranged scheme to unshackle the Wall St. beast and free the monster from its regulatory cage. We know how that turned out.
But Obama does remind me of JFK.
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country”.
Indeed. For half a century a statement which blatantly commands the working class to obediently serve the cause of empire has been shamefully spun as a call to altruism. But then, this was Kennedy, the president who authored a National Security Doctrine that transformed Latin American military institutions into counterinsurgency death squads tasked with butchering their own people for opposing US “interests”; the Kennedy who by ’62 had ordered the US Air Force to attack South Vietnam and bomb major civilian population centers, forcing hundreds of thousands of people into prison camps (euphemistically called “strategic hamlets”).
What Kennedy really said was: “And so, my peons: ask not what the privileged aristocracy can do for you–ask what you can do for them”.
Obama has proven to be no different.
unfortunately, mojada doesnt know the times or context of JFK's era. He was up against the likes of an uncontrolled CIA and pentagon loons like Curtis LeMay . Read James Douglas "JFK and the Unspeakable" and inform yourself. What happened AFTER Nov 22..a long profitable war. Similarly after 911, a longer profitable war. coincidence? Don't think so. Bobby and Jack were removed because they wouldn't play Empire. Why was Bush the Fool never questioned during press conferences? He did exactly what he was bidden . The MIC has taken over the press with their "pentagon shills" on media outlets like the program Hardball which is actually softball for more wars of conquest.
JFK like MLK was also on J Edgar's hit list -- though it's not clear who Hoover worked for -- usually himself. In any case Hoover always aligned himself with the Worst of the Worst to destroy presidents (and millions of others) and smear those he couldn't.
All that said, JFK was very much a creature of the Cold War and the East Coast financial elite and those facts need to be heavily weighed, especially in terms of the US wars in Southeast Asia, the policy of containment of the Soviets (which backfires to this day) and the US Empire vs. Central American and South American liberation movements and movements toward democracy (usually socialist and communist).
Also JFK was relatively immune to the African-American liberation movement. Though he did not like southern culture, he very much compromised with and abdicated to the "Solid South" which held a starngehold on the Democratic Party during his time as a public figure.
Love your opening line but I think you're way out of line, Mojada, showing up to piss on Kennedy's grave. Interesting that 2 creeps had to emerge from the CD shadows (State Department, is it?) to enact this latest attempt to smear the legacy of one of the better presidents this nation ever had. When was the last time YOU attempted to single-handedly stand up to the MIC?
There is a judgment day for those who so recklessly seek to shame and smear others. Like I said to your likely tag team member, read "JFK & The Unspeakable: Why he Died and Why it matters," before trying to falsely link Kennedy with militarism as his ruling mantra.
There is a cyclops devouring and fouling humanity and the environment.
Robert Scheer believes that one arm of the cyclops is worth helping.
He thinks that this is pragmatic.
Scheer is part of the cyclops.
What any of these guys say now means absolutely nothing about what the believe or what they'll do. Romney can "call for" whatever Bushian shit - obviously he thinks he has to. Doesn't mean anything at all. We all know this from watching Obama. I don't mean to bolster Mittens but Scheer's using this as some sort of head fake.
I'll be glad when it becomes "Rocky Anderson by default" or "Jill Stein by default".
The elites give money to the crazy repubs so Obama looks good even though he is doing exactly what Bush did in terms of civil rights, etc. Obama is just a show. Maybe he understands that and trapped in the presidency. I wonder what his fortune cookie says?
Curtis, Obama has outdone Bush in eviscerating our civil rights. Lesser evilism requires proponents to censor their speech somewhat, so as not to swing voters against the "lesser evil." But in so doing, they make the atrocities appear at least reasonable enough not to harp on too much. Again, what if Bush was still president and doing these things? Would Sheer say: Bush has his failings, but ....
I remember when Nader challenged Sheer's perennial adherence to the lesser evil, essentially saying: "Robert, will you ever draw a line? How low must you position the bar before you stop supporting Democrats.
I believe Sheer said he'd draw the line at the wars, if the wars weren't ended by Obama's first term, he'd end his support for Democrats. Nobody expected the Obomber!
Did I dream this or did Obama actually ESCALATE the war on Afghanistan and increase drone attacks in sovereign countries by over five times Bush's level, killing many innocent people, including children?
I have an idea for a cartoon: Sheer, et al, are digging a long, narrow hole in which to place the bar for Obama to step over. Katrina barks out: "OK guys, that ought to do it!" In the distance someone is running towards the diggers with a slip of paper, perhaps an important memo or AP release. Exhausted from the stress and effort of digging, they lean on their shovels to hear Nichols read aloud from the slip of paper. Each glances at the other with furrowed brow and Sheer mumbles: "Must keep digging."
I admire Mr. Scheer but last time was the last time I'll ever vote for the two step backward candidate over the three stepper. I intend on sitting this one out.
We should ALL Vote!
If progressive do not vote at all, you know full well the Teabag nut cases will vote along with the rich.
Vote for a Third Party rather than not voting at all.
You never know what can happen!
George Galloway came roaring back challenging both Tony Blair's emasculated Labor Party and even worse Tories:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/30/born-again-george-galloway-stuns-labor-shakes-up-britain/
Scheer absurdly writes:
"The Republicans are a sick joke, and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice in the coming presidential election but Barack Obama."
For some bizarre reason Scheer does not acknowledge that rational voters do indeed have a choice as they can vote for people like Rocky Anderson or Jill Stein. If they wish to vote outside the system they they can vote for Stewart Alexander who is running under the Socialist Party banner.
"The incumbent president has his failings, but compared to Mitt Romney he is a paradigm of considered and compassionate thought."
Obama differs in Romney in one very big way -- Obama lies really well and Romney can't help but let the truth slip out frequently, to his embarrassment and our amusement.
Only fools and war criminals believe in Obama. I don't think Scheer is a fool.
I don't get it. Scheer writes a solid book like The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street, where he lays the blame squarely where it needs to fall, then turns around and shills for the democrats, Bill Clinton, and Obama. It's like he can't help himself - he just can't consider an alternative.
Don't forget that a man as great as Noam Chomsky has always been very much the pragmatist. We can live in dreams or we can attempt to push the (slightly) better candidate to do better.
What is better about Oily Bomber? Be specific, referencing specific policies not just some vague feel good platitudes:
Obama as bad as Bush the documented record:
1. The escalated wars even compared to overt war criminal Bush?
www.alternet.org/world/144449/obama_far_outdoes_bush_in_e...
2. The continuation of the abrogation of Habeas Corpus just like Bush?
www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram
3. The continuation of military tribunals just like Bush:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030405209.html
4. The continuation of rendition to countries that torture just like Bush:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/target-of-obama-era-rendi_n_256499.html
5. The continuation of a prison camp that tortures in gross violation of the Geneva conventions just like Bush:
www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,650324,00.html
www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/51564
6. Continuation of of Bush's TARP program to transfer money from the poor and middle class to unaccountable banksters rather than helping the mainly African American victims of sub prime loans?
www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Economy/story?id=6626721&page=1
www.detroitnaacp.org/civilrights/predatory.asp
7. The appointment of industry insiders in the industry that supported Obama in the Campaign shades of Cheney and Halliburton:
http://my.firedoglake.com/fflambeau/2010/05/08/an-updated-list-of-goldman-sachs-ties-to-the-obama-admin-including-elena-kagan/
8. Obama's support for "clean coal," nuclear power and the first offshore oil drilling in 20 years which was only halted with a moratorium after the disastrous Gulf oil spill, update deepwater drilling resumed:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/02/obama-defends-clean-coal.php
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-16/politics/obama.nuclear.power_1_nuclear-waste-nuclear-power-tons-of-radioactive-waste?_s=PM:POLITICS.
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/science/earth/01energy.html
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/304897
9. Obama's crushing of government whistleblowers of U.S. War crimes and other government malfesance like wikileaks:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/17/wikileaks_whistleblowers
10. Assassination orders against American Citizens overseas:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations
11. Support for expanding Bush's Unconsitutional surveillance of American citizens:
http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2011/02/obama-pushing-to-ban-skype-gmail.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/us/18wiretap.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss
12. Health insurance reform that is a giveway of a trillion taxpayer dollars to the big insurance companies that broke the system in the first place with no price caps:
http://static1.firedoglake.com/1/files/2010/03/mythfactshcr-2.pdf
13. FBI raids on antiwar activists:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100928/ap_on_re_us/us_fbi_raid_terrorism
14. Vastly expanded TSA mandate that violates the 4th amendment.
http://www.refinery29.com/stick-it-to-tsa-body-scans-with-these-shirts-containing-a-hidden-message.php
15. Cave on fighting for progressive tax cut
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/taxe-d08.shtml
16. Make illegal indefinite detention of prisoners of wars peranent after lying about closing down Guantanamo:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/22-5
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/22-7
17. Cave on net neutrality after promising to fight for it:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/22-0
18. Broken promise to walk with strikers in "comfortable shoes:"
http://my.firedoglake.com/mmonk/2011/02/24/will-obama-find-those-shoes/
19. Unconstitutional war of aggression not cleared with Congress as required by Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, on the side of Al Queda affiliated "rebels"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12905
20. Extra judicial assasination of Bin Laden rather than trial in a court of law:
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
21. Persecution of NSA whistleblower who exposed spying on Ameican citizens:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=1
22. Balance budget on the backs of elederly by cutting Medicare, Social Security, and a 6 times budget cut for every tax raise.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/08-2
23. Rendition and torture in Somalia:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/13/jeremy_scahill_reveals_cia_facility_prison
24. Obama is the one pushing hardest for cuts to Social Security and Medicare:
http://my.firedoglake.com/metamars/2011/07/29/conyers-spills-the-beans-on-obama-ss-jobs-bill-call-for-wh-protests/
25. Unconstittional extra judical assasination of an American citzen in Yemen:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044404/Ron-Paul-attacks-unconstitutional-Obama-Anwar-al-Awlaki-death.html
26. Appove sections of Keystone pipeline a section at a time after claiming a freeze:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/22-3
27. OBAMA APPOINTS MONSANTO'S VICE PRESIDENT AS SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE COMMISSIONER AT THE FDA:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x749738
28 Obama admin gives itself permission to hold general internet data of innocent Americans charged with nothing for for 5 years:
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/22/government-now-allowed-to-store-info-on-innocent-americans/
29. NDAA allows Obama to detail Americans indefinitly on American soil without a trial.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/singleton/
See also:
http://stpeteforpeace.org/obama.html
Thank you, mrcrow, outstanding list!
Yet even that list is incomplete.
The Last thing the dim witted lesser evilists need is more facts at this point.
It's called cognitive dissonance - short for gladly accepted stupidity.
i think scheer is scared, really scared.
Sorry Mr. Scheer, yes the republicans are a bunch of louses. But they are a bunch of louses who can't get any part of their agenda done without the help of the louses in the Democratic party and the biggest louse in the White House! Slick Oily by default will not be my fault! Jill Stein will be receiving my vote in 2012! And she should receive yours too!
Obama by default?
Let's see: health handed over to insurance corps; cutting social security and most likely Medicare, the NDAA, trillions and surely more to come to the big banks, a slap on the wrist to financial institutions that continue to wreck this country and steal title transfer money from the states, drones, drones, drones, wars, wars, wars, exploding surveillance state, oil extraction in fragile places.
Want to send the message that the above is AOK? Then vote Obama. It's either Working Family or Justice Party for this lifelong, activist Dem.
Excuse me, Mr. Sheer, but I consider myself quite rational, and I will not be voting for Obama. I'll be proudly casting my vote for Rocky Anderson. And wherever possible I'll vote for any other third party candidate for Congress. I resent your fearmongering and your attempt to herd us under the umbrella of the Democratic Party. You've obviously sold your soul to the "company store" so to speak.
I also agree with some of the other commenters who want to hasten the collapse of the entire corrupt system, but if there is an opportunity to make another choice then I think it is the best way to make a clear statement of our total disgust with the candidates presented and with the system as a whole.
That said, I don't think you could make a better choice than Rocky Anderson. This man has walked the walk, and talked the talk. He has the progressive credentials that we are all looking for. No more "lesser of two evils". Check him out at www.voterocky.org
One would be remiss not to check out this guy also.
http://vote-socialist.org/p08/questionnaires/alexander.html
One didn’t have to be a political genius to know that B.O. would disappoint and betray his 08 supporters. I’m certainly no genius and I remember the dust up I had with my colleagues in the history department were I teach while that campaign was in full swing. I argued something to the effect that in four years Obama could break every campaign promise he made with the exception of buying his kids a dog, and they would be right back in 2012 making excuses for him or making the same lesser evil arguments they were making at the time. Credit to my colleagues: they’re not afflicted by the abused spouse syndrome this time around. Wish I could say the same for Bob Scheer, Thom Hartman, Randi Rhodes et. al. The difference between a Republican and Democrat is that when the Dems stick the executioners needle in your arm, they sterilized the needle first.
greg r and donny-don value that sterilized needle! It's too bad they don't feel the same way about habeas corpus
Homer Simpson: Default! The most beautiful two words in the English language. De-Fault! De-Fault! De-Fault!
Every national electoral year, we read and hear the same message: now is not the time to risk, the stakes are too great, we've got to support the lesser evil. I have personally heard this message since 1968, when I cast my first vote. Since that time, our society had a brief upsurge in the 60s/early 70s, and it has been straight downhill since. Now our nation is visibly collapsing, and we hear the same plaint as ever: it isn't time, we must be cautious.
This "realism" (as it gets packaged) is what has brought us to the edge of social disintegration. Given the cowardice that Mr. Scheer typifies, we would not have unions, votes, or even an independent nation...because, you know, it's too risky, it isn't time, you've got to be realistic. The "lesser evil" is one of the major lies of our time, one Goebbels would have been proud of. Evil, let us recall, makes things worse. So, in the interests of truthfulness, why not--for once--call things by their right names? You are not supporting a "lesser evil," but supporting things getting worse.
Say it right out loud, Mr. Scheer: "I support things getting worse." There's the politics of the pretendgressive and war liberals. Say it right out loud.
Goodbye, Mr. Scheer. You are part of the problem--which is our visibly forming National Security State, assiduously being built by the candidate of your choice--not the solution. ObaNDAA is a worthy representative of your cowardice.
"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither." - Benjamin Franklin (not a coward)
"You are not supporting a 'lesser evil,' but supporting things getting worse."
Yep -- exactly. I would only add, as a friendly amendment, that to complete the deal we must add the words of SticksinMyCraw about building the infrastructure to elect, at all levels, those who are motivated to, and would be capable of, making things better. Without that we are also, "by default", supporting things getting worse.
Obama is not the lesser evil. He is simply the more effective evil. Romney is a "dummy" candidate like Bob Dole. Elites want their boy Barry for another term and they shall have him.
Liberal Dinosaurs like Scheer are beneath contempt. At least the neocon voters can claim ignorance as an excuse. Imagine the insanity of voting for someone who just signed a law saying he could kill you and imprison you for life based on secret "evidence". And Americans have the temerity to call North Koreans brainwashed!
"When stepped on, the worm curls up. That is a clever thing to do. Thus it reduces its chances of being stepped on again. In the language of morality: humility."
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, "Maxims and Arrows," Twilight of the Idols
I was never particularly fond of this quote, but it applies quite well to Democratic voters. They keep curling up, hoping not to get stepped on again by Republicans. However, human beings are supposed to have spines. We don't need to curl up, we can stand up. Have some respect for yourself and don't vote for your own enslavement.
The American experiment is over. Elections are just PR spectacles. Time to start building real alternatives.
I wanted to post while my (full moon!) reactions to this article were fresh, that is, before reading others' impressions.
First of all, suppose you were an alien observing this planet and naturally focusing on the nation at the Front Lines of producing so much harm to other lands and population pools. Analysts from your planet would find it more than amusing, perhaps almost contrived, that the story line for this era might be entitled:
Obama versus Osama. And there, in my view, lies one of the many perceptual flaws in the case Scheer attempts to make.
The second, which is no doubt already reflected in probably half of the 55 comments that preceded mine, is Scheer's tendency not to look through a glass darkly, but to behold the world through bifocal lenses. His loyalty to the Dems, as the good guys, versus the Repugs as the seriously out to moral lunch crowd would make sense if BOTH didn't collaborate on all of the deadly policies of our times.
Does it qualify as a "Conspiracy Theory" to Scheer that the Repugs, led by the Koch Foundation and Alec, are purposely moving the national dialog so far to the right that anyone else would be viewed as a "moderate" due to the well-orchestrated political choreography?
How does Scheer reconcile Obama putting people like Summers & Greithner into key positions when THEY were key players in launching the financial eclipse (the same one they later managed to see bailed out to the tune of TRILLIONS)?
How does he reconcile Obama funding the make-war state, even if Bush set the brazen wars of aggression into motion? If Obama were on the side of the "Peace Angels," he'd have Cheney, Bush, Rice, Yoo and the rest frog-marched to the Hague.
And the tired argument about Supreme Court Justices? Oh yeah, like there's anyone truly Progressive on the bench now? The few who have some sense of moral rectitude stand out in comparison with the henchmen taken straight out of the Inquistion occupying the other 5 seats.
Heckuva job, Scheer.
;I'll stay home before I cast a vote for the current occupant (of any office). If Rocky Anderson's on the presidential ballot here, I'll vote for him.
The fact is that the Democrats abandoned progressive politics upon the death of FDR. The only president to attempt to put the party back on that path was JFK, who was gunned down in the streets for his trouble.
Voting Green from now on or if the Pirate Party comes to Amerika then I'm with them.
Is that (Muyrexen) you, Zupan, posting under another screen name?
"Gospel's" gives you away. Plus it must make you low-level I.T. high-tech guys feel so much power, so IN command at your access to multiple screen names. It's the mental equivalent of a male dog pissing on every hydrant, free to leave HIS exclusive mark. And so brave... remaining incognito all the while.
Sioux, I like a lot of your comments, but why the fixation on trying to second-guess who's got multiple screen names? Who cares?