In this Discussion
- beckysioux May 2008
- canoe7grape May 2008
- chancefrench11 December 2009
- cross98bengal February 2008
- DJRose May 2008
- dollarflame6 May 2008
- manx9shrine February 2008
- mayonaise January 2008
- moveadvice72 March 2008
- QueenofthePosers February 2008
- target35ghost February 2008
- Tempe Arizona September 2008
- thephantommilk May 2008
- tune1shade April 2008
- week84crab February 2008
- women60banana September 2008
Comments
McCain is the exact opposite- he's a republican maverick so democratically inclined that he was once in the running to be John Kerry's future vice-president. McCain is pandering to his party right now, and that's something to be said when compared to Hillary who is dismissing "her" party.
Ann Coulter is just saying crap to rile people up. She never says anything informed.
That's a good point- that hadn't even crossed my mind. You're right; even his pandering is messed up.
That's true too, and I hadn't thought of it that way either.
I was going to reply, after agreeing with you in the above, that everything was such a confusing mess to me now. Even looking at McCain's record couldn't bring me to a conclusion. But then, haha, as if magic, I got this email from MoveOn (I had got it earlier but hadn't even noticed it in my inbox):
Dear MoveOn member,
For all the coverage this week of Senator John McCain's background, there are some important things you won't learn about him from the TV networks. His carefully crafted positive image relies on people not knowing this stuff—and you might be surprised by some of it.
Please check out the list below, and then forward it to your friends, family, and coworkers. We can't rely on the media to tell folks about the real John McCain—but if we all pass this along, we can reach as many people as CNN Headline News does on a good night.
Click here to tell us how many people you can pass it on to—and to see our progress nationally:
http://pol.moveon.org/mccain10/?id=12407-9...9YpsB&t=231
10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):
1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."2
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3
4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."4
5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.5
6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.6
7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."7
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."9
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10
John McCain is not who the Washington press corps make him out to be. Please help get the word out—forward this email to your personal network. And if you want us to keep you posted on MoveOn's work to get the truth out about John McCain, sign up here:
http://pol.moveon.org/mccaintruth/?id=1240...9YpsB&t=232
Thank you for all you do.
–Eli, Justin, Noah, Laura, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
Sources:
1. "The Complicated History of John McCain and MLK Day," ABC News, April 3, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...omplicated.html
"McCain Facts," ColorOfChange.org, April 4, 2008
http://colorofchange.org/mccain_facts/
2. "McCain More Hawkish Than Bush on Russia, China, Iraq," Bloomberg News, March 12, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...ZM&refer=us
"Buchanan: John McCain 'Will Make Cheney Look Like Gandhi,'" ThinkProgress, February 6, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/buchanan-gandhi-mccain/
3. "McCain Sides With Bush On Torture Again, Supports Veto Of Anti-Waterboarding Bill," ThinkProgress, February 20, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/20/mccain-torture-veto/
4. "McCain says Roe v. Wade should be overturned," MSNBC, February 18, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17222147/
5. "2007 Children's Defense Fund Action Council?/span> Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard," February 2008
http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/PageS...n_scorecard2007
"McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion," CNN, October 3, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/03/mccain.interview/
6. "Beer Executive Could Be Next First Lady," Associated Press, April 3, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-S1sWH...g5ZtMgD8VQ86M80
"McCain Says Bank Bailout Should End `Systemic Risk,'" Bloomberg News, March 25, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home
7. "Will McCain's Temper Be a Liability?," Associated Press, February 16, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4301022
"Famed McCain temper is tamed," Boston Globe, January 27, 2008
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles...emper_is_tamed/
8. "Black Claims McCain's Campaign Is Above Lobbyist Influence: 'I Don't Know What The Criticism Is,'" ThinkProgress, April 2, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/02/mccain-black-lobbyist/
"McCain's Lobbyist Friends Rally 'Round Their Man," ABC News, January 29, 2008
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4210251
9. "McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam," Mother Jones Magazine, March 12, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_disp...tual-guide.html
"Will McCain Specifically 'Repudiate' Hagee's Anti-Gay Comments?," ThinkProgress, March 12, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/12/mccain-hagee-anti-gay/
"McCain 'Very Honored' By Support Of Pastor Preaching 'End-Time Confrontation With Iran,'" ThinkProgress, February 28, 2008
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/hagee-...in-endorsement/
10. "John McCain Gets a Zero Rating for His Environmental Record," Sierra Club, February 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/environment/77913/
Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.2 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:
http://political.moveon.org/donate/email.h...9YpsB&t=241
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/
So.....I can't support McCain after all, lol. But please, please, please, please God, let Obama win.
There is a HUGE difference between conservative social views and conservative economic views. HUGE. Fiscal conservatism involves curbing government spending which, right now, I completely agree with, given our movement into stagflation.
I really just wanted to post here to say: FIRST SHE DUCKED SHOTS IN BOSNIA, THEN SHE SHOT DUCKS IN PA. KICK HER WHERE IT HURTS, OBAMA! OBAMA 08!
I was so mad yesterday- Hill is a real jerk now, a total and complete a**hole (she has also become insipid- nothing she says actually makes sense anymore). But Obama countered her ad with his trademark logic and classiness today, and I just know PA is smart enough to see thru her.
Come on, look at what you said: the places with the best schools are the places with high LOCAL GOVERNMENT spending. Upping government spending usually gets diverted, or there are stipulations against where it is spent and to whom it is given. It caters to the lobbyists and the interests of senators who have no grip on reality since they've been in the political bubble too long.
It's all well and good to play the "I want my government to fix the potholes, clean the harbor, supply food pantries and women's shelters, improve the subway, buy textbooks and art supplies for public school kids" card. Who doesn't? Who is going to say, "I'm against filling labor pantries and improving education?" That is such a bullshit card to play. I want it too! But I want to look at how it's feasible to to this, and in the current economic situation, there is no governmental money to spend, and diverting money into public works projects rather than, oh, ongoing wars isn't as easy as flipping a switch. We need to improve things, but I'm not going to sit on my laurels and wait for the government to do anything. We need to be proactive and begin helping where WE can. Stock the pantries ourselves, support Montessori schools, support the local foods movement, protest, do whatever the fuck we can because the government isn't going to do it for us.
It's time that we start being proactive.
And where are the increased taxes going to come from? The wealthy only have so much and, as much as everyone says otherwise, given the lobbying and money-power of the wealthy, it's going to come from the middle class, the middle class who are already ignored and who are losing their houses due to this underplayed economic crisis. [Recession? No. Stagflation. Increasing government spending will only make it WORSE as it's aim is to increase consumer spending (Stagflation occurs when the aggregate supply curve moves to the left, meaning that supply decreases while at the same time, prices increase, which is why it seems that we're in a recession yet prices keep going up. If consumer demand increases due to government spending, there is slightly more supply, but prices go up even further. This happened under Reagan and it's happening again now).]
I'm all for LOCAL government spending, where I have a bigger say in what goes on. Government spending needs to be curbed.
Well, and I know this sounds naive and stupid, but yes. Here's why I think that: Bush decided to invade Iraq, Congress voted to let him, and just like that, millions of dollars went into a war. How long before Bush announced we would be invading Iraq before money went into his war? I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm guessing not very long.
And if it took not very long to go in, it should take not very long to get out. Obama and Hill have both said by the end of next year, all our troops should be home. And with them coming home, well, ends a trillion dollars in spending. I mean, a trillian sounds like it should be a fake number, and it's amazing we spent that much on a war for no reason. So I do think that once we get out, a whole lotta money will find its way back into domestic issues.
And no scattered residual forces either, or whatnaught- I mean totally out, which is what Obama promised and Hill basically promised too. If we stop spending a trillion on war, I do think that very quickly we'll find what we need to buy textbooks.
But. A lot of what I say ought to be ignored because this is a complex issues, and I know very little about economics.
Obama has taken zero dollars from lobbyists, absolutely, postitively zero.
Some people say idiotic things like that he has taken money from lawyers whose firms also serve lobbyists, but that's like playing 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon. Former lobbyists have donated to him, but there's a huge difference between a lobbyist and someone who isn't, no matter their past lives. (btw, compare that to Hill screaming at the top of her lungs that lobbyists are people too and so she would continue to take money from them). Anyway, my point is, new politics, the "reclamation of America," will change who gets our money. Even if in the past lobbyists controlled it, that won't happen now (and I know that sounds naive, but isn't a candidate taking zero lobbyist money just as amazing a feat and really does indicate the breadth of change coming over us?)
And I agree with you that we should be proactive, but there's not much you can do when the government isn't serving you because it wants to save money.
As for taxes hitting the middle class, well, I'm sure someone can come up with a plan that isn't based on helping the wealthy and burdening the rest of us. I really believe that.
Just wanna add- Bruce Springstein's endorsement of Obama was incredibly well-written. I mean, one of the finest articulations I've read in a long time. I'm going to be quoting his "reclamation of America" for a while.
And if it took not very long to go in, it should take not very long to get out. Obama and Hill have both said by the end of next year, all our troops should be home. And with them coming home, well, ends a trillion dollars in spending. I mean, a trillian sounds like it should be a fake number, and it's amazing we spent that much on a war for no reason. So I do think that once we get out, a whole lotta money will find its way back into domestic issues.
And no scattered residual forces either, or whatnaught- I mean totally out, which is what Obama promised and Hill basically promised too. If we stop spending a trillion on war, I do think that very quickly we'll find what we need to buy textbooks.
But. A lot of what I say ought to be ignored because this is a complex issues, and I know very little about economics.
How are we going to leave a war-torn nation without leaving something behind? Yes, we may be leaving troops there, but really, over and over again, people have been saying that we need to send in people who are trained NOT IN WAR but in nation-building (that elusive and undefinable concept). This would be completely different than allowing the military to run the area, a group that has been specifically trained for combat.
So, though we may be bringing troops home, we're going to need to train people to deal with the aftermath of the war. As much as I would like it to be otherwise, we cannot just leave the region and, though we can remove the military, we are likely still going to have to make a financial commitment in the form of sending aid for public works (we might have potholes in our road, but at least most all have access to clean water and sanitation), translators, guards for the translators, aid to other Middle East nations (besides Turkey and Saudi Arabia) so maybe we can at least begin to try and convince the Arab nations that we're not trying to create some New World Order, etc.
We've fucked up, and it's much easier to get into a war than get out of one... and it's much easier to insinuate that we're going to suddenly have money by saying "we're taking the troops out of Iraq" rather than admitting to the reality that is we're created a financial burden that's going to haunt us for a long time.
I don't mean what Obama has/has not done. You cannot forget about the senators and congressmen who are still very much tied to lobbyists. It's all well and good for a candidate to distance him or herself from lobbyists, but you CANNOT ignore the entire US political machine and its reliance on the wealthy and it's own stupid self-interest. The president (as much as Bush would like to pretend otherwise) does NOT have absolute power, and though we have a Democratic legislature, nothing is foolproof, and I'm sure lobbyists will find a way to wriggle themselves into any area they can.
I do like Obama, but I believe in the need for people to push forward, to protest, to start caring for people in their area in the hopes that it could grow into a bigger thing. I do not believe in working from the top down. Though having a man like Obama in office would be a move forward, we can't rest. We need to be the bearers of change, not him. And, yes, I know his whole campaign is about "yes we can," but I feel that it's, right now, just a saying, a rallying cry for support of HIM.
Where's the rallying cry among ourselves? Why do we need someone to do this for us? Aren't we powerful enough as a group?
Start with your community, the rest will come after.
I don't agree with that in a larger sense. I mean, Doctors without Borders ought to be there. The Red Cross ought to be there. But the United States and anybody that stands for the United States in any governmental, bureaucratic and otherwise office, should not be there. They don't want us there- we INVADED them. I mean, we're their Germany in WWII. We had absolutely no reason to, but we chose to occupy their country, to kill their people. We attacked them. We should get out and stop interfering. We should not try to "democratize," which is code for "Americanize." I guess what I'm saying is, we should not "train people to deal with the aftermath of war." We caused that war- we destroyed them. Can we just let them be and stop interfering and controlling? The United States should get out and stay out. The only people who have the right to help are the ones who were helping the world before we attacked Iraq: only, like I said, people like the International Red Cross, have the right to help. But the United States has no right at all to "train people" or to use any of its money to do anything anymore in Iraq. We lost all legitimacy by becoming their occupiers. Private people and private philanthropic groups raise their own money to aid people all over the world, and these are the people and groups who should be respected. But if the United States tries to use its citizens' tax money to do anything else in Iraq, I will be disgusted. American tax money should go to helping Americans, not to invading other nations and then training them to deal with it.
Right now, in the Congo, more people have died in the Congolese Civil War than have died in any conflict since WWII. But nobody's clamoring about helping them- nobody's offering to take American tax money and help those people. The Red Cross is there, quietly saving lives, and the whole thing gets almost no press. If we want to care about people without running water, maybe we shouldn't have destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure in the first place. They had quite a good electrical system and water system- we were the ones who destroyed it. It's true, they had some problems, but taking ten steps back by invading them to take one step forward by rebuilding their infrastructure that we destroyed, is odd. We didn't solve anything- we brought them into a bigger Hellhole than they'd ever imagined (tho Bush says we helped, but he says a lot of odd things). And maybe we should care about places other than where we want to conquer. And what about the Americans without running water? Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. And where did the tax money go, instead of to the victims of Katrina? Into invading Iraq. We should have stayed out and we should get out completely now.
I mentioned Obama because you said all the money would go to lobbyists, and I was pointing out that it doesn't necessarily have to work that way. I never said that I didn't care about or work proactively in my community, or that Obama supporters don't: in fact, we all do. How can you say "yes, we can" is about him, when Hillary's rallying cry is "Hillary"? The problem is that we are doing a lot for our communities, but so far, there's been no "after." And you're right- lobbyists will wiggle their way in. But that doesn't mean we just give up on effecting larger change. (how did we even get into this? oh, yeah, lol, Hill is fiscally conservative)
Right now, in the Congo, more people have died in the Congolese Civil War than have died in any conflict since WWII. But nobody's clamoring about helping them- nobody's offering to take American tax money and help those people. The Red Cross is there, quietly saving lives, and the whole thing gets almost no press. If we want to care about people without running water, maybe we shouldn't have destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure in the first place. They had quite a good electrical system and water system- we were the ones who destroyed it. It's true, they had some problems, but taking ten steps back by invading them to take one step forward by rebuilding their infrastructure that we destroyed, is odd. We didn't solve anything- we brought them into a bigger Hellhole than they'd ever imagined (tho Bush says we helped, but he says a lot of odd things). And maybe we should care about places other than where we want to conquer. And what about the Americans without running water? Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. And where did the tax money go, instead of to the victims of Katrina? Into invading Iraq. We should have stayed out and we should get out completely now.
What are you talking about? I'm not talking about Americanizing, I'm talking about providing structure so we can fix what we fucked up. I'm not AT ALL saying to "democratize" or "Americanize" and I find that statement frankly very insulting.
There are terrible things all over and I wish this war had never happened so we would be better able to take care of ourselves, but to leave without any form of aid is insulting. Throughout history, the Middle East has been more willing to cooperate when they've been treated as equals (look at Nasser's refusal to aid the US during the promotion of the Baghdad Pact in the 1950s). Leaving their country a wreck and hoping that international groups will come in and help is treating them like they don't matter. No, we're NOT wanted there, but what's not wanted there is not necessarily our help, but our hubris, our over willingness to use military force to get our way, our total disregard for the subtleties of the culture and the fact that there is such a complex history in the region that I can't even BEGIN to grasp despite taking classes in the matter (and having a roommate who's majoring in middle east studies explaining things to me constantly).
But I do know that what's needed in the region is our attempt to CATER to the people, to treat them as equals and provide reimbursement for what we've done. It's a shitty time to have to do it, given our economy, but we're talking helping to stabilize the region.
...my roommate is home and we need to gossip now. Discussion later.
Our moral responsibility is to get out.
I've taken many classes on the region too and more than just classes, but I don't think looking at the issue as a dialectic is the right way to approach it. They are people. People we've murdered. And I don't know why you're using Nasser's refusal to aid the US in promoting the Baghdad Pact as an example of a bad thing (and at the time, Britain was just getting over being there as really, an imperialist power). Bad for the US, sure, but the Soviet and Russia to this day, has a quiet relationship with some Arab countries, and evaluating Nasser's decision not to join an essentially anti-Soviet alliance from an American standpoint is the same thing as saying we need to go help Iraq, after we invaded it. It reminds me of how, in truth, the United States is the most dangerous country in the world, with its own grand supply of weapons of mass destruction. If I weren't American, I'd hate us too. The Arab nations have no obligation to be "willing to cooperate" with us, and I don't even know what "cooperation" is supposed to mean here. Obedient is a strong word, but cooperation has pretty much become a euphemism for it. The core problem is that the US thinks it's good and the Arab world bad, and any country who opposes the way the US treats the Arab world (eg France) is stupid and uppity. The US is a country- not a moral force. The US has the most powerful weapons in the world and the greatest military power- we seem to forget that we are exactly what we are afraid of. And we did an evil thing- we invaded Iraq. We did what Rome did, what Britain did in India, what France did in Africa, what Spain did in South America. We did what the Nazis did to Poland. And it's specious to deny that, to say that we have some kind of legitimate right to be there and somehow help them out after everything we did to them. It's patronizing to suggest that to them.
And meanwhile, victims of Katrina are ignored by this administration, and the starving children of the Congo are none of this administration's concern.
You're acting like I'm saying that the Middle East has to comply to US demands/ideals and that's the complete opposite of what I'm trying to say. I'm saying that, for once, the US needs to comply with Middle East demands/ideals.
WE DO HAVE TO CLEAN UP, LOOK AT THE MESS WE'VE MADE. We did all of that for reasons driven by money and greed... and we want to leave that nation as a shell (that due to our actions does not have resources nor an income (hello oil sanctions)) BECAUSE OF MONEY (or, in this case, lack thereof).
Of course they fucking hate us. But to kill their people, invade their homes, and ruin their cities... and then leave?! Do they not even deserve an attempt on our part to give what we so badly owe them. (To be fair, as my roommate has mentioned to me, we are making an effort in some areas, it's just a very good one/not going very well.) There is no way we can completely ever make up for what we've done, but we can at least try to give them the ability to function on their own terms rather than ours.
I'm not saying that it was a bad thing for Nasser to refuse the Pact AT ALL. In fact, I think he would have been ridiculed (and rightly so) if he had gone along with the West.
I was using it as an example to show that the US, which up until that time had more or less been having talks with Nasser, suddenly refused to take the Egyptian view into account and then wondered why Nasser totally rejected the plan. The US seemingly has constantly been confused as to why there's little cooperation between the West and the Arab world after over and over treating them as less than equals.
P.S. As always, I realize that neither of us has the "right" answer
Yeah, we have the same goal, but different philosophies. I just think that we've caused them so much pain and they want us out, so a paternalistic attitude of fixing things doesn't seem right to me and seems patronizing, but I understand where you're coming from in the need to repair the damage. Sigh- big questions.
The debate tonight was so good. It was kind of weird in that a large part of it was "Let's back Obama into a corner about every random person he's known in his life,"but after it finally moved away from that, it was interesting. I'm not sure who I'd say left with the upper hand. Hillary was definitely very negative in this debate, but she did it so fluently and smoothly that it didn't come off that way. And while Obama has good things to say, he tends to not say things for the sake of being polite and then when he does say them, he doesn't stress them, and they kind of melt away in his pensive style of speaking.
oh shit guys.....shit
this is why everyone mocks wrestling fans...well done guys
*slow clap*
how am i ment to explain this to people?
just why!?
why would they do this..
it was just, awfull
May we all be spared a reign of Hill Rod.
but it seems they will just be doing a vid each to reach out to 'us' wretsling fans...cause apprently we count now they want our votes..