Defense fits into an economic discussion just as readily as a foreign policy discussion. It's our single largest expense as a nation (for no good reason).
Nope, I voted for Gore. I would have voted for Kerry but I was hospitalized unexpectedly the entire week of the election.
And, like it or not, our two party system is fucking us over in a big way. As long as every third party candidate is dismissed as a spoiler, it'll continue.
I don't know what the fix is, but perpetuating this bullshit ain't it.
And I don't think Nader gave Bush Jr. the election. I think rampant fraud and a highly questionable and politically charged ruling by the Supreme Court did that.
The statistics I've read indicated that if every Nader vote had instead been a Gore vote, Gore would've had a comfortable enough margin of victory in Florida that it would've been impossible to pull off the shenanigans that did happen.
FWIW, I voted for the Whig party candidate in 2000. Then again, I lived in MA, which was going to be a Gore state anyway. If I lived in swing state, I may have voted for Gore. I didn't like Gore or Bush, but I also had no idea Bush was going to be as bad as he turned out.
However, to think that there is essentially no difference between Obama and Romney is to think like the Nader voters of 2000.
I do agree that the two party system we have is fundamentally broken, but until it's somehow reformed, we're stuck with dealing with it until it's fixed.
How do you think it will be fixed? Spontaneous magic?
The differences between Obama and Romney are relatively tiny. They involve social "decoy" issues that have been volleyed back and forth for 30 years in an attempt to distract American voters from the fact that their country is being/has been stolen out from under them.
Muppet, you sound exactly like the people who said Gore and Bush were effectively identical. Time to take off your tin foil hat and get realistic.
As far as fixing the system, I don't know how to fix it. However, voting for a 3rd party candidate right now won't fix it either -- it's just as much spontaneous magic as "wishing" for it to go away. Right now, the only way I can see it sort of being fixed is if one party completely implodes and gets usurped by another party, or if maybe we get another "Ross Perot" type who actually manages to pull it off.
The game right now is, regrettably, fixed. The only way to break the fix is to have someone with the resources to move in and wrestle it into shape. Unfortunately, no one with the resources seems willing to do so -- perhaps they have too much invested in the status quo to want to change.
The differences between Obama and Romney are relatively tiny.
On this I disagree, but not directly.
The difference between them is the effect on the momentum of two generally counter movements at the party level. The Democrats, for all their bullshit, are a center-right party that, in a vacuum, makes very (VERY) slow progress over time. The Republicans, in the last decades, are increasingly a force of very literal regression on both social and economic fronts.
When one party is status quo, and one is actively working to make things worse and slow down progress, I'm fine with voting for the status quo: my other option is to let them burn everything down.
When one party is status quo, and one is actively working to make things worse and slow down progress, I'm fine with voting for the status quo: my other option is to let them burn everything down.
Wait, is a vote for Romney a vote for burning it all down (so we can start over)? Cause that would totally change how I'm approaching things.
When one party is status quo, and one is actively working to make things worse and slow down progress, I'm fine with voting for the status quo: my other option is to let them burn everything down.
This isn't good enough. Call it idealism or whatever you want to call it, but voting for the party that still believes in corporate rule and the innate merit of wealth, but will throw you a bone once in awhile, over the party that actively wants to drag us back into the last century, or the one before, is no choice. I want my kids living in a better place than that.
Our media is owned by 6 companies. It's a worse propaganda machine than the Nazis had, and doesn't even really require any collusion, because their aims are all parallel: to maintain the status quo and corporate supremacy.
Saying "ho hum, we have to wait for a hero" is the laziest, most dangerous bullshit going.
When one party is status quo, and one is actively working to make things worse and slow down progress, I'm fine with voting for the status quo: my other option is to let them burn everything down.
Wait, is a vote for Romney a vote for burning it all down (so we can start over)? Cause that would totally change how I'm approaching things.
:-/
No a vote for Romeny is a vote for burning it all down and salting the ground so that it can never be built again.
I remember in the 2000 election saying they were both the same, and my friend Luke wanting to vote for Bush just to burn it all down, he has since regretted that decision as I regretted not voting that year.
I didn't say they were identical, just for the sake of clarification (again). I said that the largest differences, generally, are in "decoy" issues like abortion and gay rights, which we all know have enough momentum that it would take more than even the current tragic stupid-ing of the Republican party to thwart.
Romney is a dill hole. Obama is less of a dill hole but still a dill hole.
Why can't we have a candidate who's not a dill hole? Why is that too much to argue for?
I didn't say they were identical, just for the sake of clarification (again). I said that the largest differences, generally, are in "decoy" issues like abortion and gay rights, which we all know have enough momentum that it would take more than even the current tragic stupid-ing of the Republican party to thwart.
Romney is a dill hole. Obama is less of a dill hole but still a dill hole.
Why can't we have a candidate who's not a dill hole? Why is that too much to argue for?
I didn't say they were identical, just for the sake of clarification (again). I said that the largest differences, generally, are in "decoy" issues like abortion and gay rights, which we all know have enough momentum that it would take more than even the current tragic stupid-ing of the Republican party to thwart.
Romney is a dill hole. Obama is less of a dill hole but still a dill hole.
Why can't we have a candidate who's not a dill hole? Why is that too much to argue for?
I disagree on abortion as a decoy issue. There are Republicans making it literally impossible to get an abortion in some states through bully laws that target only abortion providers.
I didn't say they were identical, just for the sake of clarification (again). I said that the largest differences, generally, are in "decoy" issues like abortion and gay rights, which we all know have enough momentum that it would take more than even the current tragic stupid-ing of the Republican party to thwart.
Romney is a dill hole. Obama is less of a dill hole but still a dill hole.
Why can't we have a candidate who's not a dill hole? Why is that too much to argue for?
I disagree on abortion as a decoy issue. There are Republicans making it literally impossible to get an abortion in some states through bully laws that target only abortion providers.
I admit that they're making more negative progress recently than in the past, but seriously, this has been a "hot" issue for 50 years now. How much longer will they use this and other social issues as a scapegoat while the military industrial complex continues to grow, the dollar continues to get weaker, the wealthy continue to loot our GDP...
I didn't say they were identical, just for the sake of clarification (again). I said that the largest differences, generally, are in "decoy" issues like abortion and gay rights, which we all know have enough momentum that it would take more than even the current tragic stupid-ing of the Republican party to thwart.
Can you enumerate all these "decoy" issues as you put them? I see more fundamental differences on non-decoy issues, but maybe I disagree with you as to what constitutes a "decoy" issue.
Decoy issues, in my opinion (some of which may actually be becoming real issues again recently through sheer ignorance of the electorate):
* religious freedom * abortion rights * gay rights * formerly freedom of speech, but this is actually a real issue again thanks to stupidity and abuse of technology * ditto above for Social Security and the rest of the New Deal
For the most part, these are "solved" problems in that the progressive viewpoint will inevitably become the dominant one. They should not occupy 90% of the press coverage of any given campaign.
Issues that are all but ignored by comparison except for lip service but are much more pressing:
* education * energy independance/sustainability * ecological concerns * wealth disparity and the rigging of the financial system, ESPECIALLY in the credit industry, both secured and unsecured. This actually gets a lot of play but in the wrong areas, like the inane tug of war over Social Security amid false and repeated claims that it's insolvent. Entitlements are not and have never been the issue and are a smokescreen for the actual problem: a taxation system that's not progressive enough and legislation that increasingly favors the rights of corporations and corporate profit over individuals.
These issues aren't solved specifically because the Republican party specifically and actively opposes them. When in power, they actively revert the progress we've made.
These issues aren't solved specifically because the Republican party specifically and actively opposes them. When in power, they actively revert the progress we've made.
They didn't manage to do a whole lot of damage to abortion or gay rights during Bush Jr's reign of terror. Granted, that's subjective, but seriously, overall, those rights are still making forward progress except in isolated pockets of regional stupidity.
They're still (unfortunately) important issues, but EVEN MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES are being ignored or sidelined because of them and sorry, but that's a HUGE problem. Saying so tends to get one branded a misogynist homophobe on one side and a fag loving baby murderer on the other.. :-)
I think you forgot guns. That's the one that annoys me the most, people that keep bringing up second amendment and firearms, when I don't think either party is seriously wanting to shake up the current system.
Comments
Yes, Romney is a regressive, worthless, smarmy, egotistical shit pile, but Obama isn't exactly a reformer himself.
This debate, like the 4+ debates before it, is largely a farce. As long as we have a two party system we may as well skip it.
And, like it or not, our two party system is fucking us over in a big way. As long as every third party candidate is dismissed as a spoiler, it'll continue.
I don't know what the fix is, but perpetuating this bullshit ain't it.
And I don't think Nader gave Bush Jr. the election. I think rampant fraud and a highly questionable and politically charged ruling by the Supreme Court did that.
FWIW, I voted for the Whig party candidate in 2000. Then again, I lived in MA, which was going to be a Gore state anyway. If I lived in swing state, I may have voted for Gore. I didn't like Gore or Bush, but I also had no idea Bush was going to be as bad as he turned out.
However, to think that there is essentially no difference between Obama and Romney is to think like the Nader voters of 2000.
I do agree that the two party system we have is fundamentally broken, but until it's somehow reformed, we're stuck with dealing with it until it's fixed.
The differences between Obama and Romney are relatively tiny. They involve social "decoy" issues that have been volleyed back and forth for 30 years in an attempt to distract American voters from the fact that their country is being/has been stolen out from under them.
As far as fixing the system, I don't know how to fix it. However, voting for a 3rd party candidate right now won't fix it either -- it's just as much spontaneous magic as "wishing" for it to go away. Right now, the only way I can see it sort of being fixed is if one party completely implodes and gets usurped by another party, or if maybe we get another "Ross Perot" type who actually manages to pull it off.
The game right now is, regrettably, fixed. The only way to break the fix is to have someone with the resources to move in and wrestle it into shape. Unfortunately, no one with the resources seems willing to do so -- perhaps they have too much invested in the status quo to want to change.
The difference between them is the effect on the momentum of two generally counter movements at the party level. The Democrats, for all their bullshit, are a center-right party that, in a vacuum, makes very (VERY) slow progress over time. The Republicans, in the last decades, are increasingly a force of very literal regression on both social and economic fronts.
When one party is status quo, and one is actively working to make things worse and slow down progress, I'm fine with voting for the status quo: my other option is to let them burn everything down.
:-/
Our media is owned by 6 companies. It's a worse propaganda machine than the Nazis had, and doesn't even really require any collusion, because their aims are all parallel: to maintain the status quo and corporate supremacy.
Saying "ho hum, we have to wait for a hero" is the laziest, most dangerous bullshit going.
I don't know about you but I like running water, indoor toilets, and medication.
Romney is a dill hole. Obama is less of a dill hole but still a dill hole.
Why can't we have a candidate who's not a dill hole? Why is that too much to argue for?
* religious freedom
* abortion rights
* gay rights
* formerly freedom of speech, but this is actually a real issue again thanks to stupidity and abuse of technology
* ditto above for Social Security and the rest of the New Deal
For the most part, these are "solved" problems in that the progressive viewpoint will inevitably become the dominant one. They should not occupy 90% of the press coverage of any given campaign.
Issues that are all but ignored by comparison except for lip service but are much more pressing:
* education
* energy independance/sustainability
* ecological concerns
* wealth disparity and the rigging of the financial system, ESPECIALLY in the credit industry, both secured and unsecured. This actually gets a lot of play but in the wrong areas, like the inane tug of war over Social Security amid false and repeated claims that it's insolvent. Entitlements are not and have never been the issue and are a smokescreen for the actual problem: a taxation system that's not progressive enough and legislation that increasingly favors the rights of corporations and corporate profit over individuals.
They're still (unfortunately) important issues, but EVEN MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES are being ignored or sidelined because of them and sorry, but that's a HUGE problem. Saying so tends to get one branded a misogynist homophobe on one side and a fag loving baby murderer on the other.. :-)