Rick Perry is an asshole

The official count in Iraq and Afghanistan is somwehere around 970,000...that's civilian casualties, not military casualties.

The equivalnce argument quite honestly is a horrible one, a useless one, and its shameful tactics.

Let's say the Holocaust wasn't as bad as Stalin's purgest, or that Idi Amin wasn't as bad as Stalin, or how some people callously reacted on here saying that 3,000 American citizens deserved to fling themselves from a hundred story building because Americans killed more people.

Its time to stop arguing and excusing ourselves for being in these wars. Its nonsense, you know it, we all know it, let it go for our own sake and for the sake of thousands of innocents who are dying because of it.

You know what, fuck it,

60 Minutes interview with Sec. of State Albright in the late 1990's specifically talks about how over 500,000 Iraqi children starved to death because of US sanctions.

Boom, theres almost 1.5 million right there. Add Yemen strikes, Oman, support for Saudi activities, support for the slaughter of the Kurds, support for a dictator that slaughtered the population of East Timor, I could go on and on.

This shit can stop, that is what is infuriating. This can stop. We just refuse to believe it can.

rick perry is a scumbag

mitt romney is alright. i actually don't mind the guy, he doesn't 'come off' as being 100% evil scum and actually seems kind of smart

voting for obama. i urge everyone everywhere to do the same lest the nazi GOP take over

  On 9/13/2011 at 5:29 PM, vamos scorcho said:

rick perry is a scumbag

 

mitt romney is alright. i actually don't mind the guy, he doesn't 'come off' as being 100% evil scum and actually seems kind of smart

 

 

voting for obama. i urge everyone everywhere to do the same lest the nazi GOP take over

I say once again, what will voting for Obama do to improve our current situation? I haven't heard one legitimate answer on here, only that its "not as bad" or could get worse than a Republican president.

the problem is 100% the audience and the shit that they want to believe

instinct.

"terrify us! terrify us! PLEASE RICH WHITE MEN, KILL US! KILL USSSS!!!!"

fucking retards. no wonder i'm so paranoid. it's because i'm surrounded by fucking retards every time i go to the grocery store. these nazi motherfukass are dangerously stupid

  On 9/13/2011 at 5:31 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 9/13/2011 at 5:29 PM, vamos scorcho said:

rick perry is a scumbag

 

mitt romney is alright. i actually don't mind the guy, he doesn't 'come off' as being 100% evil scum and actually seems kind of smart

 

 

voting for obama. i urge everyone everywhere to do the same lest the nazi GOP take over

 

 

I say once again, what will voting for Obama do to improve our current situation? I haven't heard one legitimate answer on here, only that its "not as bad" or could get worse than a Republican president.

it's not as bad. that IS the answer. you know what Obama believes and you know that politics are NOT AT ALL what you think or know, he goes into the whitehouse and fights for your beliefs. that's it. your vote means nothing else. don't vote for a Republican candidate, never.

Ok, if anyone else is reading this, Vamos's position is precisely why this society continues to be polarized, and why these two-party brand managers can run their own agendas against your interests.

YO! wake up man. do you think we would have gone to Iraq had Gore been in office?

  On 9/13/2011 at 5:38 PM, vamos scorcho said:

YO! wake up man. do you think we would have gone to Iraq had Gore been in office?

What does Gore have to do with Obama getting in office? That's a ridiculous argument.

no, I don't think it is. I think it's a perfectly sound argument. I don't at all buy this newfangled 'THEY'RE ALL ON THE SAME TEAM' thing.

If that's the framework you're going to use, it's time to start thinking 'outside the box.' I'm not ready for that.

As of right now, as a voter, you have two choices. GOP/Tea Party or Obama.

You know what the GOP stands for, you know what Obama stands for.

What happens inside the white house and behind closed doors is probably extremely complex and multilayered. Of course you don't get to know how it works, you just pick a vote from one of two options and go from there.

When I vote, it will be for Obama. Aside from that if you want to do activism or work on specific issues, do that.

This whole Republican debate thing: these people are sheep. Pure and simple. I'm not going to deny that Obama and all Dem presidents are not all that different when it comes to certain issues. However, there are differences. They may be minor, but they exist. And they do make a difference.

That's all I've got to say on this, you might be right to a great extent, but still. If you're going to choose between one party and the other, the moral greatness is extremely obvious.

What is the moral greatness? How has that shown through in the Obama administration?

Don't Ask Don't Tell repealed?

Patriot Act repealed?

Guantanamo Bay shut down? Human rights abuses corrected?

Not offering complete withdrawal from any of our current theaters AND adding at least two more?

Most importantly, I think

We need to acknowledge that Obama is the first president in AMERICAN HISTORY to openly sanction the assassination of a U.S. citizen. Explain how the fuck that is exemplary of Democratic moral greatness.

so what are you proposing to do?

edit: What I mean is, this is a complex issue that just can't be whittled down to 'PATRIOT ACT' and all this shit. Who started the P Act? How could Obama get rid of the P Act? What forces are influencing Obama? What if he is doing the best with his available materials?

he's doing his best but failing...for that we should feel sympathy and give him another try.

Hey, Bush campaigned on a platform of non-intervention in 2000, but bless his heart, as hard as he tried, America was attacked and he had to go to war.

Im proposing that you stop fucking voting for these people. Straight up.

People always come back with the "well whats your plan?" That's the plan, its never been implemented, there were huge shakeups in the early 20th century so major that the political advertising and public opinion agencies were created to quiet the disgruntled American populous.

Its laziness and apathy to believe that things improve just by voting for the people they tell you to vote for, and even worse to say "well, at least with x in power, it can't get worse," IT FUCKING DID! We have 10% unemployment, 3 major wars going on and numerous other smaller operations, historical booms for the banking and upper classes, and on and on and on and on and on and on. Business as usual.

Lemme ask you this on another level, is there any other candidate besides Ron Paul that is strongly anti-war?

Im not saying this to get you to vote for Paul necessarily, but just to show you how far away the Democratic party is from this so-called moral righteousness that their loyalists constantly tout.

Those people are idiots, but they do not represent the rest of America.

Why are you ducking my question?

Also see that Paul never said anything remotely like that. What I heard was "individual responsibility", "freedom to do what you want", etc.

How is that any different from when I see people on here respond to Tea Partier's deaths from obesity/what have you as "natural selection."

  On 9/13/2011 at 5:48 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

What is the moral greatness? How has that shown through in the Obama administration?

 

 

Don't Ask Don't Tell repealed?

Patriot Act repealed?

 

Guantanamo Bay shut down? Human rights abuses corrected?

Not offering complete withdrawal from any of our current theaters AND adding at least two more?

 

 

Most importantly, I think

 

We need to acknowledge that Obama is the first president in AMERICAN HISTORY to openly sanction the assassination of a U.S. citizen. Explain how the fuck that is exemplary of Democratic moral greatness.

i guess those issues are not that important to most americans so that's why you keep shuffling leaders with similar views on those things.

what's so special about u.s citizens anyway..

  Quote

The official count in Iraq and Afghanistan is somwehere around 970,000...that's civilian casualties, not military casualties.

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

Did I say a single thing about what makes U.S. citizens special?

Although I would say it is "special" that we run around the world fucking up other people in the interests of a few companies and select interest groups.

We don't vote in our own interest. This is all the way to the 1920s and Walter Lippmann. These issues are of central importance to everyday Americans, they have just been conditioned over decades to believe that these propped up parties represent them.

can't help but go @ "conditioned to believe"

i know you cant. it must be quite a task to be confronted with factual evidence contrary to a worldview very convenient to your privileged existence.

the factual evidence that the first priority of all americans is the preservation of human rights ? doubt it exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippman#Legacy:_Almond-Lippman_Consensus

Chomsky-Manufacturing Consent

Betty Freidan-Feminine Mystique

almost any Frankfurt School philosopher

Foucault, Machiavelli, de Tocqueville, Madison, Paine,

not to mention all of the now-released and declassified CIA, NSA, FBI and military files under the Freedom of Information Act, all of which corroborate these claims. A lot of this information is within public view.

  On 9/13/2011 at 7:32 PM, eugene said:

the factual evidence that the first priority of all americans is the preservation human rights ? doubt it exists.

nice attempt to coerce what I was saying. Human rights, especially now more than ever, specifically coincide with the American voting interest.

im from sociology man, i know very well where you are getting at, that's not where i was aiming though.

we don't even need to go far, take gb3 for example, who would vote for ron paul despite issues with gay rights and abortion. isn't this an important variable ? i don't think you should hang absolutely everything on evil institutions.

  On 9/13/2011 at 7:49 PM, eugene said:

im from sociology man, i know very well where you are getting at, that's not where i was aiming though.

we don't even need to go far, take gb3 for example, who would vote for ron paul despite issues with gay rights and abortion. isn't this an important variable ? i don't think you should hang absolutely everything on evil institutions.

Abortion isnt even close to being settled in regards to human rights, so unless you are saying you are pro-life, I don't understand why this is being brought up.

And the article posted earlier makes it very clear that a large majority of these candidates refuse to repeal dont ask dont tell, and some are openly anti-gay. Its the same part of the mechanism.

Conservatives always have the advantage if they can word their position effectively. Any deviation from the norm is potential fuel for their pushing new projects. A vote for so and so is a vote not so much against gays, but to "preseve the status quo", to keep things like "the good old days", which obviously never existed. But like any society, a lot are eager to keep grasping at the ever elusive myth of homogenized states. The job of the concerned citizen is to keep exposing it as a myth time and time again in hopes that the belief will die down. Racism isn't as powerful as it was fifty years ago, women can vote, etc. etc. This process takes time, it doesn't change in a single election, and it certainly doesn't change if you throw your lot into a party that is exclusively against your interests.

think i lost you.

as i understand you were saying that americans don't vote in their interest because of all kinds of evil forces and that in reality they all have human rights as #1 priority. is that correct ?

sure it looks like an important thing but who are you to say that this is the most important thing for all ? for gb3 it isn't for example, or at least not as important as other issues brought by ron paul, and i remember that dipsrsntast was against ron paul because of those gay issues, despite him being the most vocal anti-war politician.

What I don't understand is the idea that in a democracy a new president will make a huge difference. You're not voting for an autocrat the next four years, right? You know, checks and balances and all. Even Obama was accused of being totalitarian with regards to Obama-care. And we all know how extreme that bill turned out to be.

Regarding those ongoing wars: when I look at Bob Woodward's accounts, those - to me - confirm a number of things: Obama is as against it as anybody here, but a) he as certain responsibilities in terms of safety, b) he is also the president of all the people who voted agains his ideas - so he has to take those into consideration as well (or else totalitarian ..etc), and c) mandates, bills, regulations, institutions and people that were already in place. He's either dependent on institutions, or even forced to put mandated policies into effect.

Obama's power is not unlimited. He can't replace people and re-organize entire institutions overnight. Nor can Ron Paul or any other candidate for 2012. Expectations wrt to Obama were simply not realistic.

Wrt to Ron Paul, if he would be the next president: do you really think he could get rid of the FED? Or return to the gold-standard?

I don't know of course, but that's just my idea of how democracy works. Frustration is inherent to democracy.

  On 9/13/2011 at 1:44 PM, eugene said:

  On 9/13/2011 at 8:48 AM, Awepittance said:

killing millions

it's about time to back those numbers up because they seemingly grow by millions with your every new post about the issue, do you equal "casualties as a result of conflict" to "personally murdered by pres. obamba" ?

it depends how far you want to go back, but the way i'm using the figure i'm talking about the amount of people that have been killed by American military since 9/11 which is by estimates from various sources seem to be even be understating the amount of death.

personally murdered by president obama? well clearly none

  On 9/13/2011 at 9:32 PM, goDel said:

What I don't understand is the idea that in a democracy republic a new president will make a huge difference.

Fix'd. The fact that we have the checks and balances (congress) makes a republic.

  On 9/13/2011 at 9:32 PM, goDel said:

Obama's power is not unlimited. He can't replace people and re-organize entire institutions overnight. Nor can Ron Paul or any other candidate for 2012. Expectations wrt to Obama were simply not realistic.

 

Wrt to Ron Paul, if he would be the next president: do you really think he could get rid of the FED? Or return to the gold-standard?

No, Ron Paul couldn't do those things, because Congress wouldn't allow it. Same reason why Obama can't get any of his plans done.

I think we should just be a direct democracy, we the people would be the legislative branch. Then congress could veto our decisions, and we could rally against them if we disagree. It'd make people feel like their vote makes a difference. I'm sure there are reasons why it'd never work though.

  On 9/14/2011 at 12:49 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 9/13/2011 at 1:44 PM, eugene said:

  On 9/13/2011 at 8:48 AM, Awepittance said:

killing millions

it's about time to back those numbers up because they seemingly grow by millions with your every new post about the issue, do you equal "casualties as a result of conflict" to "personally murdered by pres. obamba" ?

 

it depends how far you want to go back, but the way i'm using the figure i'm talking about the amount of people that have been killed by American military since 9/11 which is by estimates from various sources seem to be even be understating the amount of death.

Psh, so you're including Reagan's or Eisenhower's or FDR's kills under term as Obama's. How does that make sense? I mean, the whole thing doesn't make sense to me to begin with. I don't put murders our country commits on the president.