The Race for the US Presidency 2012 & Why Obama Must Be Defeated

Ken Burch wrote:

 

If Romney gets to make all the SC appointments in the next four years, does anybody think that any sort of resistance to corporate power will still even be possible? 

Right on. A pox on those who think it makes no difference whether Romney or Obama get in.

macktheknife wrote:

Nobody mentions this stuff, and I know it's thread drift, but I for one would like to acknowledge a former babbler, a very prolific poster, and a general all round nice person, Jacob Two Two, has returned to the fold. Welcome back and, well, I  love you, although not in a phyisical way, nevertheless, I hope you never get run over by a bus,  but continue to grace babble with your wisdom.

 

Well, gee, thanks mack. Though it's funny to hear someone tell me how nice I am on the heels of such a nasty post, I appreciate it.

Sorry Jacob, I didn`t mean it to be nasty, just my twisted sense of humor.

Really after re-reading that post I must say I apologize, as it was no where near what I was attempting to convey. I truly feel you are a valuable member of babble and genuinely laud your return.

This is ridiculous..I'm no fan of Obama and it's true,he's not a progressive.he's a cowardly centrist that leans to the far right..But the alternative is what?

You think Romney is more moderate?

Vote Nadar and basically you're voting for Romney.

American politics is so poisoned that your 'choice' is simply far right or farther right...This debate is almost as stupid as the morons who were screaming for us all to spoil our b allots last Canadian election...Look what we got.

macktheknife wrote:

Well, it seems like it`ll be the same.

It'll probably be the same except,the Republicans are even worse...The U.S. will NEVER have a progressive government much less anything resembling the left but there are varying degrees of that particular fascist state.

Atleast Obama tried to give Americans universal health care..I think he tried to do a couple of things but it's impossible and will remain impossible until Americans are de-programmed and realize that the system is bought and paid for and it does NOTHING positive or anything for the population's best interests.

The U.S. is the world's biggest plutocracy,biggest corporate supremist state on the planet.

Forget about them..They're a hopeless case.

alan smithee wrote:

 but it's impossible and will remain impossible until Americans are de-programmed and realize that the system is bought and paid for and it does NOTHING positive or anything for the population's best interests.

And the reprogramming is on hold while Obama is seeking re-election. Don't forget the hype four years ago that he was the great hope for change and he turned into the Prince of Drones. That is the problem you can't start the deprogramming with the same doctors in place that are giving you a choice between a frontal lobotomy and shock therapy.  I think a frontal lobotomy would be worse but that doesn't mean I would accept shock treatments without fighting.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

alan smithee wrote:

 but it's impossible and will remain impossible until Americans are de-programmed and realize that the system is bought and paid for and it does NOTHING positive or anything for the population's best interests.

And the reprogramming is on hold while Obama is seeking re-election. Don't forget the hype four years ago that he was the great hope for change and he turned into the Prince of Drones. That is the problem you can't start the deprogramming with the same doctors in place that are giving you a choice between a frontal lobotomy and shock therapy.  I think a frontal lobotomy would be worse but that doesn't mean I would accept shock treatments without fighting.

 

Agreed..Obama in reality was the Audacity of HYPE...No hope,no change....But people would be out to lunch to think it'll get better with Romney.

A long time friend of mine in the USA writes about ObamaCare: "While I would prefer a single-payer system, what the Affordable Care Act requires of both insureds and insurers is a hell of a lot better than what we had before."

It will cover 33 million more people, a good thing.  But it still leaves 22 million without coverage and that is not acceptable in my political world.  Beginning in 2018 any employees who have a plan that actually covers most medical services will see their costs either rise to unworkable levels or they will have to agree to less coverage.  The Prince of Drones thinks a medical plan that actually covers medical bills, not just a minor portion of them, is a "Cadillac" and we all know working people have no right to expect a Cadillac health care plan.  Obama gets it that executives receive that kind of benefit not working stiffs.  Its not like they went to Harvard right?

Well, as bad as it is, it reportedly is better than what the US had before - and now the Supremes are about to kill it. So, what's your argument, again?

The US Supreme Court is a perversion of what its role was meant to be.  It is supposed to operate as the check on the power of the legislative bodies not become another partisan body where it is easy to predict court decision based on which party made the appointment. The American system is broken I understand that but I just don't see Obama as an architect of change.  I don't know how they can fix it but it can't change until someone does something different. A definition of insanity that I have always liked is, "doing the same over and over again and expecting a different outcome despite the hundred times you've tried before."  That is how I see voting for the Liberals or voting for the Democrats.

Or maybe a better analogy would be Obama as Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon.  Charlie (i.e. the progressive voter) knows she is going to pull the ball but still gets sucked in every time. 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

You make the absurd presumption that Obama will appoint judges who oppose corporate power.  Rest assured that while he is likely to appoint judges that have a firm commitment to individual rights and that is a good thing he is never going to appoint judges that will limit the powers of his corporate backers who pay the bills. Health care proves that point in spades. 

Obama has so far only appointed one judge, Sonia Sotomayor.  She voted against the Citizens United Ruling to give corporations unlimited polictical spending.

If you could point to a decision where Sotomayor has voted to increase the powers of the corporate backers, then you would have a better argument.

This is an interesting discussion.  For me, I try to support the best option that has a chance of having an effect.  Here, that's the NDP.  In the States, that would generally be the Dems.

If all you are going to do is vote (ie. not campaign), then it doesn't really matter.  Safe blue state leftist voters can vote a third party candidate for president and feel good about it.  But safe blue state leftist campaigners should understand that getting out the vote for a presidential candidate can have a large coat tail effect and can get real progressives elected to congress where they can make a difference (to the extent that votes in congress matter).

I supported Ralph Nader's campaign in 2000 (supported in spirit, as a non-USian not living in the US) and have never disparaged that ampaign at all.  But frankly I feel like everything he's done since has been useless spinning of wheels.

I think a real third party is built through quality local campaigns with inspiring candidates, not through no-hope presidential campaign.  My advice to activists seriously interested in building an alternative, leftist third party in the USA would be to run candidates for Congress and Senate seats strategically, now and in 2014, with potentially an eye on a 2016 presidential campaign.  As a non-USian not living in the US, it's not like that's an appropriate channel for my own activism.

I think a Mulcair minority govt would be likely to have as much per capita leftist resistance here as what's currently being directed at Obama.

wage zombie wrote:

I think a Mulcair minority govt would be likely to have as much per capita leftist resistance here as what's currently being directed at Obama.

Well, if his record turned out as bad as Obama's, he'd deserve it. Remember, it's not just about Obama not pursuing enough progressive initiatives. It's also about all the horrible initiatives he has enacted. Civil liberties have disintegrated under Obama and corporate rule has expanded. He's not even holding the line, let alone pushing back. If Mulcair became PM and then reserved the right to assassinate any Canadian citizen at whim, obviously I'd be done with the NDP for good.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

macktheknife wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Here are two news stories from the same day, June 14th.  They highlight why I think Obama should be defeated. His imperialism reeks to the extent that it is impossible to hold ones nose and still be able to mark and X.

Really? But there's no alternative for those on the left. Mittens would have given Shimon Perez the medal and THEN given him a blow job. As long as there is some small semblance of a "left" in America then we should support it, IMV. To do otherwise is to condemn the U.S. AND Canada to conservative win.

Thanks but I have spent 40 years here in Canada being told my support of the NDP was just as stupid and harmful to the progressive cause.  I disagree and note that the third party in Canada that is not controlled by the corporate world is now the second party and knocking on the doors of power.  If all us fools had agreed with your logic Canada would be stuck with the Con Lib duality that is the same as your Rep Dem duality. 

There is no short term fix to the problem but if I was a US progressive I would be working to build for the future success of a better party.

Fine.  But do that at the local, state and Congressional level.  The Electoral College makes it impossible to build a left altnernative by runnint third-party presidential candidates.  The fact that the Nader campaigns left nothing in their wake in terms of the creation of an alternative proves this.

Bernie Sanders helped build an alternative by choosing that route.  If he'd run for president on a third-party ticket, he'd now be forgotten by everyone, as Nader and Cynthia Mckinney(both people I admire for their views, btw)now are by pretty much everybody.

Oh, and "mack", I wouldn't normally do a spelling thing, but it's "Peres", not Perez(it's  simply the Hebraization of the name "Persky").  Shimon Peres(whose family was from Poland, and who is, weirdly enough, a distant cousin to the film actress Betty Persky, better known to most film noir afficionados as Lauren Bacall)is Ashenazi, not Sephardi.

NDPP wrote:

In summary, the Obama administration has been to the right of Richard Nixon. Nixon, who launched the Environmental Protection Agency, signed the Clean Air Act, supported OSHA, offered a government managed and more coherent Health insurance plan than Obama's, never called into question Social Security or Medicare, upheld financial regulation, reconciled with China, did not tick off names (including Americans) on kill lists and whose Watergate crimes are juvenile pranks in comparison to the assault on constitutional rights of the past three years.

And why did Nixon enact all those initiatives? Did he want to do that? I would suppose not, but that's neither here nor there. The reason is that there was organized political pressure at the grassroots that forced the politicians to act. Where is that organized force now? The left in the US expects "their" guy to do all the work once he's elected, and they never organize. That's one of the reasons that progressive politics in the US is not credible, because progressives are silent when the Democrats do these things on the ground that they need to "stop the Republicans," compared to the right which is always pushing its agenda regardless of who holds elected office. That's why the recall effort in Wisconsin failed, because the Democrats took up all the energy and made the recall about electing a Democrat instead of a fight for labour rights. People need to organize and mobilize and force the politicians to act. In other words, it's not about stopping Romney from being elected out of fear of what he will do, it's about creating a climate where even if Romney is elected he wouldn't dare go as far as he wants because he knows he'd suffer the political consequences.

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights... Carter Accuses U.S. of 'Widespread Abuse of Human Rights'[/url]

A Cruel and Unusual Record wrote:

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.

Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation's violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues. ...

"Instead of making the world safer, America's violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends"

Since 9/11 and wars of conquest in Afghanistan and Middle East, the rest of the world increasingly views the USA as a corrupt and lawless nation.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

And why did Nixon enact all those initiatives? Did he want to do that? I would suppose not, but that's neither here nor there. The reason is that there was organized political pressure at the grassroots that forced the politicians to act. Where is that organized force now? The left in the US expects "their" guy to do all the work once he's elected, and they never organize. That's one of the reasons that progressive politics in the US is not credible, because progressives are silent when the Democrats do these things on the ground that they need to "stop the Republicans," compared to the right which is always pushing its agenda regardless of who holds elected office. That's why the recall effort in Wisconsin failed, because the Democrats took up all the energy and made the recall about electing a Democrat instead of a fight for labour rights. People need to organize and mobilize and force the politicians to act. In other words, it's not about stopping Romney from being elected out of fear of what he will do, it's about creating a climate where even if Romney is elected he wouldn't dare go as far as he wants because he knows he'd suffer the political consequences.

Very true. If there is no difference between political parties then only we can direct policy with our collective voices. BUT, they have 24/7 propaganda machines that pipe into our living rooms that have made us compliant and even fervent in our obedience. How do we defeat that?

Coupled of course with our high standard of living which includes, as George Carlin has said, cell phones that can make us pancakes, we have been fattened up to a degree that just the notion of dieting is controversial.

Glad to help.

I almost fell off my chair today when I read that the USSC upheld 'Obamacare'

Strangely the act in being passed might be Romney's best shot at winning.  The Supreme Court was very clear that what Obama has insisted is not a tax on poor people is in fact only constitutional because it is a tax.  That is the hammer they are going to go on and on about until November.  If that framing takes hold then Obama is in trouble.

CNN last night was discussing this in a panel, and the consensus was, yes, Romney can run on the tax increase idea - but also were unaminous that the idea that Romney can repeal and replace ObamaCare on day one  is a pile of horse manure. And, the panel said that Obama has the wind in his sails because of the SCOTUS decision, and people like a winner. And, the Citizens United decision means that the election will br brought, anyway - there's no limit anymore on what people and corporations can give to sway the vote, and to buy voter-supresssion schemes.

Repealing Obamacare is going to be as hard for Romney as repealing Citizens United is going to be for Obama.  And, since Romney is already on record as saying he will be the 'economy and jobs' candidate, does he really want to go back to fighting this 2009 issue all over again?

NDPP wrote:

Netanyahu's Message to Obama Campaign: When we say 'Jump' you answer 'How High!'  -  by Franklin Lamb

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/29/netanyahus-message-to-Obama campaign

Presidential candidate Barack Obama is being targeted by the US Israel lobby from A to Z, as no American President seeking re-election has been in the country's 236 year history. So what price is being demanded of the Obama campaign for Zionist lobby support between now and November 6th..?"

Romney will no doubt honor all their demands as well..It doesn't make a difference.