http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mobileweb/2012/11/04/ndp-obama_n_2073163.ht...
I found this interesting, didn't realize so many,dippers were involved in the American election.
I think Mulcair's anwser was a really good one, honest, but without crossing the line of good taste and Helen made a good point too.
I'm sure the HarperCons are praying for a Romney victory.
On one level yes, personal preferences, on another, electoral issues, no, its risker to be seen buddying up to a Republican president then a Democrat president. Canadians including most Tory voters hate the Republicans.
It means XL goes through, but at the above price.
Obama - Democratic Party 78%
NDP 89%
LIB 87%
BQ 86%
GRN 80%
OTH 61%
CON 58%
Romney - Republican Party 12%
CON 29%
OTH 16%
LIB 8%
GRN 7%
NDP 2%
BQ 1%
all across canada goes strong bluer but alberta is light blue 58% D vs 25% R
canadian politics are odd to me, forum polls said conservative vote Obama like 58%,
most tory favour of Obama than Romney? BUT Republican is a Conservative! what difference?
most tory favour of Obama than Romney? BUT Republican is a Conservative!
Yes, but so are the Democrats, so it shouldn't be surprising that Canadian Conservatives' support is divided between the two parties.
^^ Exactly. It irritates me when people talk about Democrats being progressive. Of the two parties, sure, but they are much more similar to the Conservatives in Canada (maybe even further right).
I guess there is two different Conservative like - Progressive Conservative vs small c conservative ?
Maybe it would be best to explain with an example.
In America, Democrats can't propose public health care. They don't have enough leaders who truly believe in public health care, and American opinion is easily rallied against it.
In Canada, our Conservatives can't get rid of public health care. They don't have enough leaders who believe in abolishing health care, and American opinion is easily rallied against it.
Not a huge issue, but it would be nice to hear a few New Democrats voice their support to Jill Stein
More appropriate to compare the Reform wing of the Conservatives to the Republicans and the Progressive Conservatives (and some Liberals) to the Democrats
Clambake nailed it above, but overall, I am astounded at how naive Canadians, and even some Canadian leftists, are when it comes to Barack Obama. He has expanded the Bush doctrine and is a centre-right, corporate-controlled Democrat. US progressives projected ideals onto him that he never held nor stood for 4 years ago when he ran for the first term, apparently, those north of the US did this as well.
"In America, Democrats can't propose public health care. They don't have enough leaders who truly believe in public health care, and American opinion is easily rallied against it."
Not true: polls show that the majority of USians support a single payer system. Some polls have shown 2/3, some have shown about 57%. Politicians won't do it because they are owned by for-profit insurance companies and the US Left has a crack/cocaine-like addiction to the Democratic Party.
"In America, Democrats can't propose public health care. They don't have enough leaders who truly believe in public health care, and American opinion is easily rallied against it."
Not true: polls show that the majority of USians support a single payer system. Some polls have shown 2/3, some have shown about 57%. Politicians won't do it because they are owned by for-profit insurance companies and the US Left has a crack/cocaine-like addiction to the Democratic Party.
"It irritates me when people talk about Democrats being progressive. Of the two parties, sure, but they are much more similar to the Conservatives in Canada (maybe even further right)."
They are toaster, as bad, reactionary, and racist as Kenney is, the cons are to the left of the US dems on immigration.
"It irritates me when people talk about Democrats being progressive. Of the two parties, sure, but they are much more similar to the Conservatives in Canada (maybe even further right)."
They are toaster, as bad, reactionary, and racist as Kenney is, the cons are to the left of the US dems on immigration.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mobileweb/2012/11/04/ndp-obama_n_2073163.ht... I found this interesting, didn't realize so many,dippers were involved in the American election. I think Mulcair's anwser was a really good one, honest, but without crossing the line of good taste and Helen made a good point too.
"Helen Laverdiere, a Montreal MP was less forthcoming, 'I don't want to meddle in the internal affairs of another country, but let's say that my heart never went to the right of the political spectrum.'
Except with Libya or Syria or Israel...
As for the NDP and Obama - didn't Brad Lavigne suggest the party would benefit greatly from 'learning from the best'?
While when given the choice of Obama or Romney, there is only one choice - Obama. However, there are problems with Obama. He appointed Geithner, former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission that was suppose to oversee Wall Street - a job so well done we had the 2008 financial sector crash after much financial crime by the banksters, to be in charge of the US treasury. Geithner has contined to pursue economic policies that backstop the Wall Street banks and could lead to another crash. The entire financial sector is even more concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of oligopolistic banks than before the 2008 financial crisis. Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, spent years as counsel for large corporations before returning to public service. Not one bankster has been prosecuted under his watch - a pitiful record compared to that of the Bush Senior and Clinton Department of Justice " More than a thousand felony convictions followed the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s and early 1990s" (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/wall-street-s-worst-at-least-ca...)
A more dramatic statement of the same outcome:
WALL ST. CONVICTIONS: Bush 1300+, Clinton 1000+, Obama 0.
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1959744/pg1
Of course Romney hasn't talked about this because he wants to do away with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, created under the Obama watch, which the banksters used lobbyists to create holes that a tractor trailer could drive through. Romney, of course, believes it offers too much regulation.
Obama's health care bill will result in hundreds of billions flowing to the private insurance companies rather than a more efficient public health care system. He did not even make a token fight for a public health care option despite the urging of many.
When each candidate for President is spending over a billion dollars on his campaign, mostly from corporations and much of it from Wall Street, the choice is between the Corporate Party and the Corporate Light Party, as a Democratic legislator from Montana, disgruntled by the entire process, said this year.
Ask the parents of dead Pashtun kids droned if there is a choice. Ask Iraqi refugees if there is a choice. Ask Palestinians in the open air prison of Gaza if there is an actual choice. Or the child soldiers ilegally detained at Gitmo.
Ask the parents of dead Pashtun kids droned if there is a choice. Ask Iraqi refugees if there is a choice. Ask Palestinians in the open air prison of Gaza if there is an actual choice. Or the child soldiers ilegally detained at Gitmo.
Ask all of those people if voting third-party and electing Romney would bring them back to life.
Also, ask anybody who isn't an upper-class white male liberal if she or he could SURVIVE the at least twelve-to-twenty years(if that short)that it would take to get a left third-party up to an electable level of support...twelve to twenty years in which the most extreme, vicious, misogynist, LGBT-phobic, labor-crushing life-hating extreme right wing maniacs would rule the U.S. with no constraints on their power at all..where liberated zones and anything progressive on a local level would be totally impossible.
It's not a luxury anybody not in a position of absolute personal self-suffeciency has.
Obama sucks, but voting third-party isn't something any real U.S. progressive is free to do this year.
Against Voting - by Arthur Silber
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.ca/2012/11/against-voting-as-long-as-we...
"...Any individual who rises to the national political level, is, of necessity and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system. I identified this Law in an article published in, God help me, February 2008. The miserably unhappy but entirely accurate title was: 'Most Of You Will Eat Shit Until the Day You Die.' In that piece from what seems a lifetime ago, immediately after stating this Law, I wrote:
'Yes, yes; there are a handful of exceptions. That's so some of you can continue to prattle about the virtues of 'participatory democracy,' That's so you don't notice that the ruling elites don't give a damn what you think, except for brief periods surrounding elections--when they'll tell you what you want to hear, even though history, incuding yesterday's history, proves they didn't mean a single damned word of it...
I'll be blunt, een rude: You can call it Republican shit. You can call it Democratic shit. It's still shit. It's still murder, and torture and criminal war, and a growing surveillance state. If you vote for the Demcratic or the Republican candidate for president - and if you vote for almost any of the candidates for national office - you're voting for murder. You're voting for torture. You're voting for criminal war. You're voting for the growing surveillance state. Is that what you choose to do? It that what you choose to support? Is it?
This coming Tuesday, the answer - from perhaps as many as 140 or even 150 million Americans--will be: Yes! That is what we CHOOSE to support!"
Obama sucks, but voting third-party isn't something any real U.S. progressive is free to do this year.
The problem is that the same can be said every election. Every election there's a terrible Democrat and a moderately worse Republican. Every election voting Democrat looks slightly better in the short-term than the alternatives. And every election the Overton moves that much more to the right as "real progressives" validate the Democrats' calculations that there's more votes to be gained than lost by continually chasing conservative voters.
If not [i]this[/i] year, then when? When will it be safe for "real progressives" to vote for someone other than a war-mongering friend of the elite?
Of course there are a great deal of problems with Obama as there were with Martin and Chretien. But in the scheme of things, I think we would be experiencing less damage with Martin than Harper and I think the US will experience less damage with Obama than Romney. Canada is finally closer to maybe electing a somewhat more progressive alternative in the next election but I think it will take a long while before that ever happens in the US.
As a woman, I am EXTREMELY tired of having to revisit reproductive rights issues. Romney and the Republican Party as they stand today are a danger to women's rights.
Obama sucks, but voting third-party isn't something any real U.S. progressive is free to do this year.
Depends on where they are. If they are in California or Texas say, and there is no question who is going to take the state, a progressive would be free to vote third-party.
Ask all of those people if voting third-party and electing Romney would bring them back to life.Also, ask anybody who isn't an upper-class white male liberal if she or he could SURVIVE the at least twelve-to-twenty years(if that short)that it would take to get a left third-party up to an electable level of support...twelve to twenty years in which the most extreme, vicious, misogynist, LGBT-phobic, labor-crushing life-hating extreme right wing maniacs would rule the U.S. with no constraints on their power at all..where liberated zones and anything progressive on a local level would be totally impossible.
It's not a luxury anybody not in a position of absolute personal self-suffeciency has.
Obama sucks, but voting third-party isn't something any real U.S. progressive is free to do this year.
Let's turn the question around. How bad does a Democrat have to be before it's okay to stop voting for him? What practical victories has the left achieved by voting Democrat and hoping for the best?
I remember in 2004, there was all this fear-mongering about how bad a second Bush term would be. Well, Bush served a second term and life went on, just as it will if Mitt Romney gets elected. The fear-mongering was as baseless then as it is now. It's the same thing we heard in Canada about how bad the Conservatives would be if they won a majority because of vote splitting between the Liberals and NDP. Well, progressives backed the NDP, the Conservatives won their majority, and life is continuing on. Besides, polls are showing that the Democrats will at least hold the Senate, so for Mitt to be able to accomplish anything major the Democrats would have to be complicit anyways.
Why do so many American leftists vote Democrat? The Democrats have made it clear that the only thing the left is good for is to help the party win elections, other than that the Dems don't care about their issues at all. And they come back and say, "gee, we have to support the Democrats because there are no viable third parties." Did it ever occur to them that maybe if they actually tried throwing their muscle behind a third party that their issues would be taken more seriously by politicians?
A Romney victory sends a message to Congress and Senate and to every State government that it is OK to pass legislation to oppose women and LGBT rights. To ignore that aspect is to betray those two groups.
A Romney victory sends a message to Congress and Senate and to every State government that it is OK to pass legislation to oppose women and LGBT rights.
Not if you vote for a candidate that clearly supports equality and reproductive rights.
Accomplices to Murder
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.ca/2012/10/accomplices-to-murder.html
"...If you vote for Obama, you vote FOR the murder of anyone, anywhere, anytime...The same is true of Romney. If people can't understand this, its because they refuse to understand it."
Of course there are a great deal of problems with Obama as there were with Martin and Chretien. But in the scheme of things, I think we would be experiencing less damage with Martin than Harper and I think the US will experience less damage with Obama than Romney.
I think that concedes far too much power to those in office. Yes, Harper and Romney are both arguably worse than Martin and Obama, respectively, but the public can still act as a check on their power, if they choose to act. Nixon was forced to enact all sorts of progressive legislation - not because he was progressive by any stretch of the imagination, but because he was forced to by militant and organized popular movements of the day. The problem is that progressives have largely stood-down since Obama's election. Romney claims to be a job creator. Maybe a Romney presidency would get the progressives back to work.
What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting in" -- and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.
the Wall Street Journal is right here:
Obama stuck to his guns in 2009 when "corporate tax cuts" ad infinitum might have been easier:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020484630457809470226577103...
Mr. Obama has governed from the left not because he miscalculated his priorities but because these are his priorities. His first term is best understood as a race to put himself in the pantheon of the great progressive Presidents—Wilson, FDR, LBJ—who expanded the state's control over the private economy and over the wants and needs of the American middle class.
The price of this governing choice includes a weak recovery, achievements like ObamaCare that are unpopular, the loss of the House in 2010, and a polarized electorate. Unable to run on his record, he has conducted a low-down re-election campaign based on destroying his opponent's character. If the polls are right, even if he wins re-election, he will do so as the first President since Wilson to win with a smaller margin than he did the first time.
But for Mr. Obama, this won't matter. His great progressive gamble will have paid off. His second term will be about preserving the government gains of his first term, especially ObamaCare, and using regulation to press government control wherever else he can.
***
Rhetorically, the Barack Obama of 2008 was a centrist, a post-ideological pragmatist who was color blind to "red" and "blue" in his "one America." But anyone who inspected the policy details (see our editorial, "A Liberal Supermajority," October 17, 2008) could see he favored by far the most liberal program of any Democratic nominee since George McGovern in 1972.
This tendency came to the fore in his first days in the White House, when the Obamateers turned to fiscal policy. The popular President might have combined ideas from both parties, blending for instance a major corporate tax cut with public works spending for an easy political triumph.
"Elections have consequences," Mr. Obama instead told Republican Eric Cantor, "and Eric, I won." He then outsourced his agenda to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and aging left-wing committee chairmen like Henry Waxman and David Obey whose policy ambitions had been frustrated since the 1980s.
Accomplices to Murderhttp://powerofnarrative.blogspot.ca/2012/10/accomplices-to-murder.html
"...If you vote for Obama, you vote FOR the murder of anyone, anywhere, anytime...The same is true of Romney. If people can't understand this, its because they refuse to understand it."
It seems to me that the reason people don't understand this is because the mainstream media lies to them about what Obama and the Democrats have done and what they stand for.
It also seems to me that what most people refuse to understand is that the mainstream media is lying to them.
But surely even the mainstream media has covered enough of this new Executive right to kill even Americans? People should by now be getting it.
It's a bit like smoking. Despite all the evidence of its poisonous effects, it's habitual, and combined with a perverse wilful blindness, the stupidos continue their self-destrucive behaviour until they get a personal diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. Eyes wide shut.
Even on a supposedly progressive board, so far too few get it alas. Most stubbornly adhere to 'democratic' lie and fantasy, even though the diagnosis is already in and its terminal.
I think Silber nailed it: 'If people can't understand this, it's because they refuse to understand it.'
I don't believe it’s realistic to expect that the necessity for a re-evaluation of the left/right political fable will generally occur anytime soon. Progress nowadays tends to look at crimes against humanity through blinders that helps people to sleep at night after they queue up to vote, while reaction salivates over the prospect that atrocity equals growth.
"In America, Democrats can't propose public health care. They don't have enough leaders who truly believe in public health care, and American opinion is easily rallied against it."
Not true: polls show that the majority of USians support a single payer system. Some polls have shown 2/3, some have shown about 57%. Politicians won't do it because they are owned by for-profit insurance companies and the US Left has a crack/cocaine-like addiction to the Democratic Party.
Hey, no disagreement here. But that's not what I was saying. I don't think a majority of Americans are against public health care. I've seen those polls. Just that there's a powerful enough right wing network (politicians, business leaders, media, and their followers) that they're easily rallied against any effort to implement it. Americans LOVE medicare. But push a few buttons and they demand that government keep their hands off of it. In fact, there's a ton of polls that show Americans want a shift to the left, but if you do enough red-baiting, they revile in horror. It's not rational.
With all due respect, I don't think that you can compare our political system to your political system (for context: I am in the US, but am relocating to Canada within the next year to study).
Anyway, you all actually have an oppostion party: the NDP. Now I know that some of the things that they say and do are completely unacceptable such as voting to bomb Libya, pulling their support for Palestine, moving to the centre, etc. But they do behave like an opposition party: they will undo some of the damage that the Cons have done if they get in 2015. But I truly cannot understand why they are going south of the border to campaign for Obama, my jaw dropped when I read that in the article that started this thread. Unless, they are doing it for strategic reasons and are thinking that Canada will be better off with an Obama presidency as far as exporting, jobs, etc. That is not my area of expertise, so I cannot speak to that.
Here, the right controls everything and are never opposed except by grassroots groups. As for the person who said that the GOP is worse on women, that is true. Womens' rights (I am a woman, specifically a socialist feminist) have been viciously attacked, and we, as a group, are second to only black Americans when it comes to the first to be thrown under the bus. Labor being a close third. I am speaking in generalities because this is a blog post and I am in a hurry but one example is that Bill Clinton refused to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, womens' rights eroded under his (Democratic Party) administration and in over 85% of US counties, we did not, and do not, have abortion providers and this hurts poor women, and the fact that the Democrats never fought the Hyde Amendment which pulls Medicaid funding for abortions (some more liberal states, like Maryland, allowing their medical assistance funding to go for abortions, but that does not help a woman in the deep south).
This is why I feel that the per voter subsidy needs to be restored in Canada, it is slowly eroding because of the Cons and the fact that they want a corporate-funded system like the US: this will destroy your country if his happens, so lesser evil voting is completely justified in Canada. Voting NDP in 2015 and pressuring the hell out of them to do the right thing, as they are, to a point, still accountable to their rank and file, which are much further to the left that almost any of their MPs, and most especially their Zionist leader Mulcair.
As for the person who said that voting for Romney won't bring back dead Pashtun kids, what does that even mean? That has nothing to do wth the fact that a Democratic Party President havs destroyed the lives of the people by kiling their children, and now he can assasinate US citizens without a trial or any other barrier, they can do it just on a whim. Both candidates for President will enact these new powers, created by the Bush Administration and expanded by Obama, full force.
As far as the idea that third party people are all "white and middle class, and male", that is an insult to the Black, Brown, female, and working people who are fighting the two party system.
With all due respect, I don't think that you can compare our political system to your political system (for context: I am in the US, but am relocating to Canada within the next year to study).
Anyway, you all actually have an oppostion party: the NDP. Now I know that some of the things that they say and do are completely unacceptable such as voting to bomb Libya, pulling their support for Palestine, moving to the centre, etc. But they do behave like an opposition party: they will undo some of the damage that the Cons have done if they get in 2015. But I truly cannot understand why they are going south of the border to campaign for Obama, my jaw dropped when I read that in the article that started this thread. Unless, they are doing it for strategic reasons and are thinking that Canada will be better off with an Obama presidency as far as exporting, jobs, etc. That is not my area of expertise, so I cannot speak to that.
Here, the right controls everything and are never opposed except by grassroots groups. As for the person who said that the GOP are worse on women, that is true. Womens' rights (I am a woman, specifically a socialist feminist) have been viciously attacked by the Republicans, and we, as a group, are second to only Black Americans when it comes to the first to be thrown under the bus. Labor being a close third. I am speaking in generalities because this is a blog post and I am in a hurry but one example is that Bill Clinton refused to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, womens' rights eroded under his (Democratic Party) administration and in over 85% of US counties, we did not, and do not, have abortion providers and this hurts poor women, and the fact that the Democrats never fought the Hyde Amendment which pulls Medicaid funding for abortions (some more liberal states, like Maryland, allowing their medical assistance funding to go for abortions, but that does not help a woman in the deep south).
This is why I feel that the per voter subsidy needs to be restored in Canada, it is slowly eroding because of the Cons and the fact that they want a corporate-funded system like the US: this will destroy your country if his happens, so lesser evil voting is completely justified in Canada. Voting NDP in 2015 and pressuring the hell out of them to do the right thing, as they are, to a point, still accountable to their rank and file, which are much further to the left that almost any of their MPs, and most especially their Zionist leader Mulcair.
As for the person who said that voting for Romney won't bring back dead Pashtun kids, what does that even mean? That has nothing to do with the fact that a Democratic Party President has destroyed the lives of the people in the Middle East and Greater Middle East by kiling their children, and now he can assassinate US citizens without a trial or any other barrier, he can do it just on a whim. Both candidates for President will enact these new powers, created by the Bush Administration and expanded by Obama, full force.
As far as the idea that third party people are all "white and middle class, and male", that is an insult to the Black, Brown, female, and working people who are fighting the two party system.
"In fact, there's a ton of polls that show Americans want a shift to the left, but if you do enough red-baiting, they revile in horror. It's not rational."
You are right about that, and I hear you on the rest of what you say, and corporate news media is a big part of that reality by dumbing down the discourse and using fear-mongering tactics. This country is ruled by fear and the elites benefit.
Anyway, you all actually have an oppostion party: the NDP.
I know, I know, Slumberjack, I hear you, but on this side of the border, we'd love it if the Democrats talked about the poor, came out in full force against the Keystone pipeline, and supported repeal of all abortion laws.
Your response is actually great because it shows that you do not have piss poor expectations for a true opposition party.
As everyone here knows, I voted BQ because I didn't see the Orange Wave coming - news doesn't get updated very quickly here. But right afterwards, I took out a new membership in the NDP and will renew it every year so long as the NDP actually remains the only choice for progresives, even though they, like Obama, disappoint. What other choice is there, now?
I agree Boom, if I stay in Canada and become a PR, I'll buy a membership and get out the vote for them.
Grassroots pressure and movements, the Cons don't care, but the NDP can be pushed in the right direction with bottom-up organizing.
to vote or not to vote - obama, ndp, coke or pepsi - lots more discussion on this central question here:
Boycott Les Elections/Boycott The Election 2011: Vote With Your Feet
http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/boycott-les-elections-boycott-...
http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/boycottons-les-elections-boyco...
"If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal." Emma Goldman
People who don't vote are morally superior to those who do. I don't vote because I'm smarter than everyone. I've been very effective at changing the world.
Your response is actually great because it shows that you do not have piss poor expectations for a true opposition party.
I find piss-poor expectations, or none at in my case, essential when it comes to avoiding both disappointment and various rituals associated with apologetics.
There is a much, much greater gulf of difference between NDP and Cons than there are the GOP and Democrats, the US parties are nearly identical in most cases.
People who don't vote are morally superior to those who do. I don't vote because I'm smarter than everyone. I've been very effective at changing the world.
Which essentially can be taken to mean that people who do vote are morally superior by comparison with the dolts who do not, because as we all know in being the smart voter, voting can change this society of ours.
Had a related conversation around a bonfire last weekend with a friend who opined that citizens in a democracy who don't vote should keep their mouths shut, who then proceeded to develop this rationale for about five minutes without interruption, until he noticed I wasn't responding and appeared to be in no hurry to do so. An expletive laden personal insult was the result when I was finally asked for an opinion. He should have stuck to his first statement. Speaking of bonfires...is it November 5th already?
The S&M Election - by Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_sm_election_20121105/
"...So it is with some morbid fascination that I watch Barack Obama, who has become the prime 'dominatrix' of the liberal class, force us to plead for more humiliation and abuse. It is collective sadomasochism. And we will get a good look at it on Election Day."
LOL!!!!!! to the comment on the pagethat NDPP linked to:
"I missed have missed the part of Canadian history class where the teacher explained how Tommy Douglas and the CCF seized power in Saskatchewan through armed insurrection and 'direct action', followed by the imposition of Medicare on the bourgeois capitalists by a revolutionary anarcho-socialist vanguard."
Jack: I meant low expectations being met in order to support a Party (i.e. apologists).
I voted early and didn't vote for the Greens, I voted for a Socialist candidate: Stephen Durham.
The US government cannot be reformed, it has to be dismantled.
LOL!!!!!! to the comment on the pagethat NDPP linked to:
"I missed have missed the part of Canadian history class where the teacher explained how Tommy Douglas and the CCF seized power in Saskatchewan through armed insurrection and 'direct action', followed by the imposition of Medicare on the bourgeois capitalists by a revolutionary anarcho-socialist vanguard."
Jack: I meant low expectations being met in order to support a Party (i.e. apologists).
I voted early and didn't vote for the Greens, I voted for a Socialist candidate: Stephen Durham.
The US government cannot be reformed, it has to be dismantled.
Of course there are a great deal of problems with Obama as there were with Martin and Chretien. But in the scheme of things, I think we would be experiencing less damage with Martin than Harper and I think the US will experience less damage with Obama than Romney. Canada is finally closer to maybe electing a somewhat more progressive alternative in the next election but I think it will take a long while before that ever happens in the US.
As a woman, I am EXTREMELY tired of having to revisit reproductive rights issues. Romney and the Republican Party as they stand today are a danger to women's rights.
You'd be wrong, Martin at least when he was finance minister was worse then Harper in many areas.
Obama in turn was worse in some areas then Bush.
The only real reason to vote Obama is gay rights, abortian, and the Supreme court appointments, and Romney's platform.
Still what's the alternatives for Americans? There no NDP in the states.
The alternative has to be built within current structures. Bill Mayar has suggested a Occupy Wall Street Party within in the democracts in the spirit of the Tea Party minus the corruption, insanity and utterlessness of the Tea Party.
For now Obama is the least objectionable choice.
But Progressives need to start organizing soon for next time to ensure a better set of choices.
Should People Vote for Obama or Third Parties (and vid)
