U.S. Presidential Election 2008

This is nonsense. Obama's domestic agenda is way to the right of any party of the left on Europe, and his foreign policy is imperialism lite.

@moctoj2
I am against the death penalty and for abortion rights yet I'd rather drop dead than be part of that MoveOn crowd. Puhleaze.

@Wheel
Whatever you say, sir. Obama's a conservative!

eurovol is full of rubbish, as usual. Nor does he have the slightest idea what I stand for, as witnessed by his many flagellations here on TT.

Putting words in my mouth JW. Bad habit.

As for Iran, I was talking to an (American) woman the other day and she said Iran frightened her, and she believed we should just go ahead and bomb them. I asked her what purpose that might serve? She said 'Well, we've tried talking.' I answered, 'No, we've only threatened them lately, which is most likely why they want to start building bombs.'

I really don't get people who so flippantly suggest wholesale murder. She would wholeheartedly support an attempt to kill every last Iranian. I had to drop it, as I find that attitude so incredibly shocking it leaves me speechless. I wonder though, does she condone murder as a solution to her other problems, or only mass-murder perpetrated by the State?

Jules, I'm not a 'member' of MoveOn, in fact, don't even read their stuff. It's just a matter of opinion for me.
Keep abortion legal (and safe) and use the death penalty when it's validated: for mass murders.

I think I'd agree that from the perspective of Europe Obama would be more centre right than centre left, which makes it all the more astonishing that he is seen as leftwing in the USA. Have we always diverged so far or is this just a recent thing?

what is more worrying is that there have been members of the Bush administration with similar attitudes. Would McCain be any different?

There has always been some difference but the US has swung a long way to the right in the last 30 years.

McCain is a leader of this pack.
I'm tempted to suggest to these people who want to bomb countries that frighten them, that they should first be given the opportunity to go over there themselves and snap the limbs off of a few of the enemies' children if it pleases them.

I see you're not above such flippant thinking based on your suggestion.

But Kat was indeed making a serious point. Its easy to want to bomb the living daylights out opf your enemies if all you ever see of it is the edited highlights on Fox. That goes as much for the population as the administration.

* Cough * - like the UK...

One really wonders what the people of Hamburg were guilty of in July of 1943...

Here we go - again

Well If it was not having fire insurance they were shit outta luck.

no, actually, nothing like the UK


I don't agree that it was correct for the UK and the USA to bomb civilian populations either but there is a world of difference between the UK fighting against an evil dictator who has already crushed Europe and threatens UK sovereignty and a big superpower like the USA picking on countries for aqnihilation that pose it no threat whatsoever.

It's easy to think one can live in peace and harmony with other nations in the world if all you ever see of it is the edited highlights of how horrible Americans are. All you need to do is get rid of them and everything will be fine. Remember, the source of all evil comes from America. Let me rephrase that - all conservative Americans.

We all know how unbiased the European and Middle East media is.

It's like that "you're either with us or against us" mentality. Pure genius.


Well bully for you, you go on and disagree, I can smell your outrage. Thank god the rest of the thinking world is of a different opinion.

My comment was not flippant at all. Which is worse? Killing someone yourself, or sending a hired killer? You find it revolting to suggest you go over there and rip children's legs off, but yet you willingly send soldiers with bombs that will rip the legs off of children and worse.

What Bullshit. Is the US "picking on" the Taliban? Are they "picking on" Bin Laden? You have a short memory...remember the 9/11 attacks? The attack on the USS Cole? The 1st WTC bombing? The Khobar Towers attack? Saadam was an "evil dictator." Remember? Remember he was the guy that used chemical weapons? Remember he was the guy that started an 8 years war against Iran? Remember he was the guy that invaded Kuwait? Remember, he was the guy that shot at coalition aircraft for 12 years in the NO-Fly Zones and put a $50,000 bounty on the pilots? Remember he was the guy that launched SCUD missles against Iran and Israel? No threat whatsoever? Just dumb.

Ever heard of the Iron Lady? The complete and utter repeal of nearly everything acheived under Atlee?


Last time I read a history book, WWII was firstly called the phoney war, the Germans were interested in lebensraum, the UK declared war on GY and Rudolf Hess flew to the UK to make peace.

I don't believe in aqnihilation [sic] of people either, but what has been acheived under Britain, Germany and France wrt Iran?

Anyway, back on topic...

Hypocrite: Obama Trashes Company Helping $$ His Advisers

Why do you lump all these different problems together?

Because, silly, there are 2 groups of people in the word 'Us' and 'Them', and by being a member of 'Them' you are all jointly responsible for each others actions..

Try and find the common denominators, why don't 'cha. Try connecting some dots...why don't 'cha?

I got it! I GOT IT! Common denominator: FOX NEWS SAID SO.

Dumb...really dumb.

Interesting, I would have though you would have lumped them together. You know - It's all the fault of the US.

If western civilization is not to your liking maybe you would be better off living in the Middle East. I'm sure they have a great track record on equal rights for women.

Yeah, what he said. Maybe she could be NObama's rep to go over and talk to these people? Or a human shield maybe?

look, the role of world superpower has been occupied solely by the USA for almost two decades now. Arguably, the actions of the USA have a greater impact on the rest of the world than all other countries put together. Sometimes that impact has been good, yes even some of the military interventions. But for the last decade it has been unremittingly negative. I can appreciate that an American moving here might be alarmed by the antipathy we Europeans demonstrate towards the USA but anyone looking further into the past will see that it wasn't long ago that the majorioty of Europeans passionately supported the USA.


Do we? Or does it just not agree with your particularly nasty world view?

Only in the future will that be able to be determined. The unknown is what would the world be like if the US had behaved differently. We will never know. It could be worse or better.

Remember how opposed some Europeans were against the military build up by Ronald Reagan, but we can see the results today. Cold War - over. Communism - over. But I'm sure your explanations for those events fit your political ideals better than mine.

To say that Communism would not have fallen without Regan's buildup is kinda ignorant, there were massive amounts of internal problems that were hidden from the west at the time. I don't oppose what we did at the time but its a far more complicated issue than 'reagan beat communism'.

Unfortunately now we're fighting people being manipulated by a religious ideology which tends to thrive in economic chaos more than a political ideology. The more people we kill the family members of and the more people we bomb into 'freedom' = more recruits for manipulators, which religious authorities are masters of.

We have to realize that our time of hegemony is drawing short and we have to at least posture to our allies to best secure our position in the future, and if that means talking to someone before bombing them, so be it.

BB, even though I am a Quaker I supported and could see a lot of good in the initial action in Afghanistan. If only we hadn't diverted the majority of combat units to Iraq then Afghanistan could have been adequately pacified. But no we had to assuage an attavistic desire to crush Iraq, a country on its knees with sanctions and with no WMDs, instead. And now McCain wants to do the same to Iran. God help us.


really? And what were those things she repealed that Attlee brought in? The NHS is still there. So is the Welfare State in essence. Thatcher broke the piostwar economic consensus but that was never a creation of Atlee, whose economic reforms and restructuring were essential to the immediate postwar recovery but never intended as longterm policies. Actually Thatcher was a great admirer of Attlee of whome she wrote " Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show".


I'm gobsmacked by the blistering ignorance of that last statement . . . .


very little. Because ultimately the only important negotiator is the USA. Now of course if the EU reorganised into a single superpower that might be different but that scenario is very unlikely.

I think you'll find that the Germans and our other East European friends played quite a large part in the fall of Communism. The Autumn of Nations springs to mind. The 1989 Autumn of Nation's revolutions in the East Block significantly shifted the balance of power.

quite right Janx Spirit. Mrs Thatcher palyed a part as did the rise of the European Uniuon as a powerful trading bloc as well as the advent of capitalistic reforms from Deng Xiaopong in China. The Cold War came to an end because strategically Russia relaised it had far more to gain through reform than isolationism.

I don't think Russia had much of a choice in its matter, it was rapidly losing its grip on the other republics and the warsaw pact territories. Perestroika occured in 87 and was an attempt to save a dying system. The fall of the USSR is a complicated and muddled that requires a view measured in decades rather than years to adequately put forth a thesis.

although it was actually Perestroika that emboldened liberals in the former Warsaw Pact countries to sue for reform.

I'd say that it was more Glasnost, but that aside they were more of a trigger than the underlying cause. Had the soviet system not been falling apart they would never have been introduced and thus the member states wouldn't have had the impetus to have their revolutions for fear of another Prague spring.

Let's be real here...the main reason behind the fall of Communism was Pope John Paul, The Great.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

though I daresay a good few Catholics believe guff like that

John Paul II's 1979 trip was the fulcrum of revolution which led to the collapse of Communism. Timothy Garton Ash put it this way, "Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev, no fall of Communism." (In fact, Gorbachev himself gave the Kremlin's long-term enemy this due, "It would have been impossible without the Pope.") It was not just the Pope's hagiographers who told us that his first pilgrimage was the turning point. Skeptics who felt Wojtyla was never a part of the resistance said everything changed as John Paul II brought his message across country to the Poles. And revolutionaries, jealous of their own, also look to the trip as the beginning of the end of Soviet rule.



The Pope’s epic June 1979 pilgrimage to his homeland there were nine days on which the history of the 20th century pivoted. In those forty-some sermons, addresses, lectures, and impromptu remarks, the Pope told his fellow-countrymen, in so many words: “You are not who they say you are. Let me remind you who you are.� By restoring to the Polish people their authentic history and culture, John Paul created a revolution of conscience that, fourteen months later, produced the nonviolent Solidarity resistance movement, a unique hybrid of workers and intellectuals — a “forest planed by aroused consciences,� as the Pope’s friend, the philosopher Jozef Tischner once put it. And by restoring to his people a form of freedom and a fearlessness that communism could not reach, John Paul II set in motion the human dynamics that eventually led, over a decade, to what we know as the Revolution of 1989.

It took time; it took the Pope's support from Rome--some of it financial; it took several more trips in 1983 and 1987. But the flame was lit. It would smolder and flicker before it burned from one end of Poland to the other. Millions of people spread the revolution, but it began with the Pope's trip home in 1979. As General Jaruzelski said, "That was the detonator."

It was Gorbachev himself who acknowledged publicly the role of John Paul II in the fall of Communism. "What has happened in Eastern Europe in recent years would not have been possible without the presence of this Pope, without the great role even political that he has played on the world scene" (quoted in La Stampa, March 3, 1992).

But Pope John Paul opposed the gulf war, how can he be great?

You call Paisley a bigot yet your hard on for Catholics would make him blush.

Now that we got that all sorted out...can I go back to bashing NObama?

Obama is left of center in the US. Why is this astonishing? The US is more conservative than Europe in many respects. It has probably always been. However, one should always bear in mind that there is a great spread of political opinion in the US from "You can pry my gun from my cold, dead hand" to "Legalize it" and plenty in between.

I support both 'from my cold dead hand' and 'legalize it', they are hardly counter intuitive.

You'd be a libertarian then. They also favor legalized prostitution, bless 'em.

I saw Bob Barr (The Libertarian candidate) on the Colbert report the other night. He voted for the 'protection of marriage' act, and the patriot act. Colbert said that Barr wants to make government so small, it will fit in your bedroom.
I really wonder what forces are at work to nominate Barr - a former Republican - for this candidacy. He's certainly not a libertarian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_II

What says you BB?