U.S. Presidential Election 2008

Probably not relevant but this is CNN's breaking news.

@thefirelane Actually, Jimmy Carter was the worst president ever. Now the Dems are using association to win. The republicans can just say that Obama is Jimmy Carter version 2.0

Carter the worst President ever? Bah, I think you are full of shit and blind to the current reality we face. Carter was and is a great man, was a good and decent President and was made ineffectual by his own party as they struggled with themselves. That struggle continues today and we are almost rid of the "boss-hog" types that think to beat Republicans you have to be "Republican". Had we done a better job of removing the quislings back then, Gary Hart would have been running against Reagan instead of the worst candidate ever Walter Mondale.

How about Not using profanity eurovol. Let's all act civilised. Don't you agree?

http://vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200408310659

The above link describes Jimmy in painful detail. Let everyone decide for themselves.

BD, we won't know whether this is relevant or not until the police reveal whether the murderer (who was himself later killed) had political motives for his actions. Apparently the killer was a car dealer, and the victim had bought vehicles from his dealership in the past, so it could be some kind of business-related grievance.

I myself find it extremely disturbing that ordinary men are suddenly going wacko and just shooting people whom they consider to be too "liberal." (Also reference the recent church killings in Tennesee.) Maybe someone can show that ranting liberals are taking up arms and shooting people whom they consider to be too "conservative," but I doubt it. The question is, where are these people getting the idea that so-called "liberalism" is such a danger to society that all left-leaning people should be killed for their political position?

When you post garbage like this


then you are full of shit and the websites you visit are full of shit.

I am sorry, but I will not allow such crass demonization to continue. The right has had a free reign in this for far too long and too many on the left are enabling it. Next thing you will say is that if the Dems were in charge instead of Lincoln, we would still have slavery today. Following that, you might even suggest that Dems are equivalent to Nazi appeasers. The current Administration has actually done those things. Those things are PROFANE!!!

eurovol, all I'm asking is that you post your opinion and something to back it. No need to get all emotional about it. I'm truly not trying to offend youm as I metioned now on three ocasions. I don't use profanity when I see a view point from the left. Let's keep the forum ciivilised. If I postsomething that is outside the pale, then, poit it out and let me defend the position. I'll ask the same of you.

I am sorry, but these anti-Dem stances that are purely based on Party brainwashing rhetoric just get to me to the core. There is no substance to these claims and it is simply spreading garbage. Hell, as much of a paranoid schizo Nixon was even I think he was actually a good President and Conservatives rate him worse than Carter.

eurovol, when I post something, I admit that I don't always agree with all the content. Yes, some of the information in the article is over the top. I agree with you there. It had some interesting points however and I found no great harm in presenting it, because anyting in the article can be discussed and disputed. I actually have some regard for Jimmy Carter. I think he is a deeply religious and sincere man. I don't agree with him by talking with Hamas though. Bad form to upstage the US government. If the next president is Obama, I'm sure you'd agree that no former president should upstage him as well.

Obama will be no Dubya and with Bush, the people, all the people, have to do something to stop the madness if at all possible. Even GHWB isn't all that pleased with what his son is doing.

We already got rid of one King George, I think you will agree that if we have another one we have to get rid of him as well. It is our right and duty.

I'm curious why you think GHWB isn't pleased with his son. Blood is thicker than water you know.

That is exactly the problem with the current world political climate. Peace in the Middle East and elsewhere will never come when we have administrations of any stripe, of any country, putting their own egos before people's suffering.

If Carter felt he could do something to contribute to a solution, "upstaging the US government" be damned, he did the right thing.

Ever heard of The Elders?

Fixed that for you.

Negotiating with terrorsist could not be considered to be a good thing. It was poor form.

Other than the Tennessee incident, can you cite others where "hatred of liberalism" (in the US sense of the word) was a motive for violence? I think you are extrapolating more that what can be reasonably inferred from a single incident (or even several) in a country with a population over 300 million, and an incident or incidents in which mental illness may very well have been the most significant or primary factor.

As for "ranting liberals"...


I wouldn't extrapolate a trend from the Vermont incident, either, BTW.

I have seen references to a now-deleted posting on the "liberal" Daily Kos asking which conservative the Kos readers wanted to see get a brain tumor next. Obviously, we don't know who the author was, so we cannot jump to conclusions on that.


Frankly speaking, IMHO, what you post much of the time on these political threads could be seen as anti-Republican brainwashing. That is often what party partisans on both sides do.

You mean like you do on a daily basis?

Furthermore eurovol, you're one of the biggest partisan demagogues on this forum. What exactly are you going to DO about it, huh? Have ll those who disagree with you banned from this site? Typical liberal, the only free speech allowed is that which has been approved by the DNC.

Carter did not "allow" Iranian radicals to sieze the US embassy in Tehran any more than Dubya "allowed" 911 to happen.

The man had his faults, we all do, but the image of him built up by American conservatives over the last 30 years is one of the biggest cases of character assassination in living memory.

MT I actually agree that the wording is too strong. Carter couldn't have known that the Iranians would capture the embassy staff. I'm pleased, however, that as a liberal, you recognize that Bush did not cause Katrina. A fact that often is lost on the left. It seems that partisan politics has risen to absurd heights and accusations are being made by all sides that are becoming quite silly.

Excuse me?
I am most certainly NOT a fucking liberal!

heheheh

MT a liberal??!! How absurd

I'm US social liberal economic conservative all the way.

That said, I've always thought Jimmy Carter has been unfairly maligned. He was an Annopolis grad and navy officer with a specialty in nuclear engineering (he always said "nuc-e-er", which always made me laugh a bit when everyone pilloried GWBush for saying "new-cue-ler"). That's better street cred than most of the chickenhawks. Elected as a democratic "change" candidate, he was dealt a really crappy hand of an unpopular war, collapsing economy and rising energy prices ... hmmm. At least he has generally distinguished himself as a do-gooder, instead of just riding around in speedboats like GHWBush.

That said, blaming GWBush for the Katrina response has always stuck in my craw. If Bono was so concerned, why didn't he pluck a few of the people too daft to climb on the evacuation busses off their shotgun shack rooftops with his own personal helicopter?

Democrats used to be the Pepsi to the Republican's Coke ... pretty indistinguishable sugar-coated beverages. The Democrats lefties pilot-fished on the back of a southern constituency that wouldn't ever vote Republican because that was the party that abolished their way of life (n.b. Die Linke). The Rockefeller Republican wing pilot-fished on the back of the increasing voting power of the west coast branch. Migration (both geographic and economic) allowed people to discard their old regional/ethnic loyalties in the Reagan years; as Rockefeller Republicans died off, they were replaced by northeast neocons, as newdealers died off, they were replaced by the MoveOn crowd (n.b. Die Linke).

Show me ONE link of a liberal blaming the occurrence of Katrina on President Bush. The pathetic response, yes, and for many good reasons. The disaster itself, no.

Whereas blaming Bono for the Katrina response is really ludicrous, Expaticus.

My own theory on Carter is that he was just in the wrong job as President. Just as I feel that Al Gore has made more valuable contributions to mankind having lost the election in 2000 than he would have if he had become President. Certainly I don't think that history will agree that Carter is the worst President of the past 50 years.

Not sure I get the differences to Die Linke there Exp.

My appoligies MT. Just curious, how would you descrisbe your political views? (because you have confused me.)

Cinzia I can't offer a link of something I heard on the radio or from casual aquaintances. But, yes, Bush was blamed for what the mayor and governor should have been blamed for and that is, they didn't get their peoplpe out on time. NOT Bush's fault.

Laugh all you like BTC, revenge will be mine. Hahahah aha( wicked laugh)

Good old fashioned lefty, believer in personal liberties and pragmatic.

But if you had to put label on it:
Non orthodox trotskyist with increasingly a good dose of anarcho-syndicalism.

I'll have to look that up in the dictionary!!

and I just did:

is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labor movement.
That's a mouth full!!

Plenty.


You're reading me completely wrong. I'm certainly not blaming Bono for the Katrina response ... more for his unannotated criticism, and completely forgetting how the US responded to the indonesian tsunami, implying that US people are cold-hearted. Where were the MTV videos for this? ... guess there weren't anough delta bluesmen involved.

That's not what you wrote, yanksavage:


Bush was criticized, appropriately enough, for his part in the failure of the overall emergency response to Katrina. You're saying he is completely innocent of wrongdoing in the matter, then?

Expaticus, finding links to one German who reportedly blames the occurrence of Hurricane Katrina on Bush doesn't support yanksavage's contention that nutty liberals everywhere think Bush caused Katrina. Who the fuck cares what Bono says about the US response to Katrina, anyway? Last I checked, neither Germans nor Irishmen are allowed to vote in US elections.

Expaticus, I obviously mean the effect. Your splitting hairs here.

Bush was criticized, appropriately enough, for his part in the failure of the overall emergency response to Katrina. You're saying he is completely innocent of wrongdoing in the matter, then?

Wrongdoing is not an appropriate word. I would say the help was slow and typical response from government. People don't always need government to get in the way.

I've lost the plot here ... I thought Cinzia inferred that. Sigh.

for the record: I think Bush was unfairly maligned for the Katrina response. There's plenty of other stuff to malign him for, but that's not one of them in my book.

Was trying more to point out similarities rather than differences.

BARACKY II

The lads don't usually complain yeah.

Second half of an e-mail circulating about Obama (first half posted here):

First off, the "Parties" switched ideologies since their formation in the 1800's. Lincoln was certainly not a Republican by today's measure. The first sign of trouble came in the post industrialization era in 1912 when Roosevelt broke off from the Republican Party to form the Progressive Party (more in line with Lincoln than what the Repubs were becoming). WWI ushered in the Repubs of the rich business class and Dems of the people and the straw so to speak came with the New Deal. The Civil Rights movement pretty much showed where the two parties were headed and the final bastion of racist southerners that completed the switch were called the Reagan Democrats.

BUT the worst thing you said there is that I am a Pepsi and thems fighting words! If I ain't a Coke, then at least let me be a Mountain Dew!!!

It seems that McCain may have borrowed the "cross in the sand" story.

More proof, if ever it was needed, that you can always tell when a politician is lying - his lips move!

I dunno if you are trying to champion the working class shouldn't you be RC Cola?

The Royal Crown part is a bit off-putting. Reminds me of King George.

Sam's Choice ... just in case you don't feel working-class enough already, here's your off-off brand cola.

Last time i was at sams that stuff was still only a quarter out of the machine.

I live in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul), where the Republican National Convention will be held in a couple of weeks. Yesterday I noticed that The Daily Show has taken out a billboard on the interstate near the airport:

WELCOME, RICH WHITE OLIGARCHS!

I wonder how those hedge fund managers, trial lawyers, and Hollywood stars are going to be greeted in Denver.

Been thinking about this, wondering why dems have been accused of saying things to the effect of "free speech for everyone, well, except for those with republican agendas" (as many in this thread are keen to point out every time eurovol exerts his right to free speech!), and I think it's this. I think it has to do with the following:

- Republicans are often assumed to be the group that encompasses the christian right (if you don't agree, stop reading now)
- and for example this christian right has wanted things like creationism taught in school, since they *know* better than scientists, merely based on how they interpret a 1000+ year old book (die Bibel)

-- for all you nitpickers it's not just about that, but that merely as an illustrative examlple --

how are you supposed to take those people seriously? i mean, how are you gonna want to listen to, or be swayed by, anything these people say if they choose to ignore a more plausible scientific theory for a vague interpretation of an old book? I've got nothing wrong with the bible itself, but how people interpret it and declare "truth". I could respect "republican thinking" if the christian right would once put the idea forward of "you know, maybe GOD invented the process of evolution. Maybe he got the ball rolling. Maybe he designed it that way so he wouldn't always have to keep his eye on it - it would evolve on its own." But the assertion of "truth" is what irks people.

if you are about to say america separates the church and state and my point is stupid, then answer me this - could a US candidate ever become president if he said either:

- I'm not christian, I'm just a man with decent values.
- I'm a christian, but it has nothing to do with my job, since christian values have over time become general american values, so what does it matter if i go to church?

hence, the thinking that republicanism, like fundamentalism, is often just an institution of indoctrinated people. it's the christian right, and that whole debate earlier in this thread about "personal responsibility" is basically an ethos to not give a crap about anyone but yourself (but is meant to be some sort of motivational statement, that if you work hard you can accomplish anything, regardless of your race, class, gender, or intelligence).

Go!

The answer is no - at this time they couldn't be elected, but the fact that is true has nothing to do with the first ammendment being invalid. The 'seperation of church and state' does not somehow obligate an electoral base to vote a certain way.

Not true, the idea of personla responsibility is that each individual should make the choices and decision to reach whatever goal they want to achieve life. You're responsible for learning the skills you need for your chosen profession, your responsible for attending school so you can get abetter paying job, you're responsible for choosing ajob which will allow you the lifestyle you want, you're responsible to ensure you can afford to raise the children you want (the time investment as well as the financial), you're responsible for your retirement planning.

It's not an excuse to say fuck you to everyone else, people need help at times, but that help should be limited, and designed to help those that have no other recourse. It should not provide a lifestyle for someone that allows them to choose not to work, and life off the work of others.

I ignored the christian thing because they're all a little weird anyway.