The 2008 Elections

[RedEye]

Ah-Ha! So, you don't want to vote, you just want to complain. Every non-voter is a voter for whatever it is they don't like. Maybe the system is flawed, but if you don't vote, you can't even hope to change things.

That's what the Corporations, etc. count on.

[Konietzko]

Ah-Ha! So, you don't want to vote, you just want to complain. Every non-voter is a voter for whatever it is they don't like. Maybe the system is flawed, but if you don't vote, you can't even hope to change things.

That's what the Corporations, etc. count on.

Not necessarily. I'm just waiting for the next American civil war, at which point I'll go from a mere complainer to a rebel sympathizer.

I consider myself in the same league as the Conscientious Objectors of the Vietnam war era when it comes to politics.

[Terastas]

I can't take it anymore. That whole "both parties suck" notion? That's propaganda. All the meat puppets to the corporations and the special interest groups want you to believe there is no such thing as a decent politician because that will reduce the chances of you going out and voting for one.

Instead the fate of our nation was left in the hands of people that chose George W. Bush because they'd "like to have a beer with him."

So please, spare me your "all politicians suck" garbage. If it weren't for those kind of sentiments, we'd have a Nobel Peace Prize recipient in the White House instead of Pinky & The Brain. A government corrupted from top to bottom; that's what apathy gives you.

Don't like the government?
Get involved in it.

Still don't like the government?
Get more involved in it.

Don't feel like getting involved because American Gladiators is on?
*shrugs* Sucks to be you.

[RedEye]

That is SO RIGHT!

We've been conditioned by both our own laziness and some of the Media to think we can't make a difference.

That is so very wrong. Our government is not "hands off" (although I notice both candidates trying to make us think so). Democracy, or Demos "The People" / Cratos "Rule, Control" says it all. It's something that we all have to make time for in our schedules. Letting the "Powers that Be" run things has a dangerous effect: someone who is dedicated to serving the people will, after sufficient disregard, begin to think that they don't need the People, that they know best. Then we get the separation of People and State; wherein the State is at cross-purposes with the People it claims to serve, and persists in its actions believing that the People are wrong.
The People are never "wrong" that way. They might be mis- or non-informed, they might be mean-spirited, they might even be stupid; but in a democracy they can never be WRONG.

Today we have "Elitists" running things. How did this happen? The "Elitists" did what everybody should have done; they took part in informing representatives and investing their time in the governing process.
That's the whole thing right there.
Of course the Corporations are involved; that's what they DO...they manage things. They manage our government because we can't be bothered. We have Soap Operas to watch, and Star Trek Next Gen is on the Sci-FI channel and oh did you know that they'll be running "the Mummy" again...

We didn't lose our government: We gave it away.

[Midnight]

The People are never "wrong" that way. They might be mis- or non-informed, they might be mean-spirited, they might even be stupid; but in a democracy they can never be WRONG.

I wouldn't agree with that as stated, but I think the disagreement might be more in the definition of the word "wrong" than anything else. Personally I'd characterise a bloody stupid choice as the wrong one. I've seen some wrong choices made at election time in the past.

But in a democracy, what the people can never be, is ignored. Otherwise you're out on your ear come next election.

[Figarou]

LOL!! http://sendables.jibjab.com/ LOL!!

[Terastas]

LOL!! http://sendables.jibjab.com/ LOL!!

That's the first time I ever thought someone's depiction of Barack Obama was funny.
Of course, there's that "you can't make a difference" notion I was ranting about earlier.

[Black Claw]

Hey it won't let me on!

[vrikasatma]

Alert
If you are of voting age, and went through foreclosure in the recent mortgage crisis, please check your voting status with your Secretary of State. You might be barred from voting on account of the foreclosure. It's the latest Conservative election scam.

If you're not, but know someone who just lost their home, tell them to check their voting status IMMEDIATELY. They can re-register through their local library, many banks, apartment complex office, post office. Personal note: The Obama campaign is registering voters, whether you vote for him or not, whether you're Democrat or not.

Check for voter registration booths at your local farmers' markets, as well. Here in Oregon, our registration deadline is October 14, ballots drop in the mail October 17 (yeah, we get 17 days to vote in our skivvies — ain't that cool? Only one case of voter fraud in ten years, too). Check with your state to find out when their registration deadline is.

[MattSullivan]

Barack Obama STILL hasn't made clear what "changes"he's going to make or his policies on all the big issues. I believe he'll get elected because people are gonna vote for him based on an "it feels right" notion. I'm not voting for him.

Then again, Sarah Palin scares the crap out of me.

[vrikasatma]

If you're serious about your "issues" request, go here:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

Draw up a long cold one, and invest an hour. There's quite a bit to read.

Check out what your tax cut would be under an Obama Presidency here:

http://alchemytoday.com/obamataxcut/

As for changes, he's already made them. For one, his campaign is mostly financed by regular people kicking him $5, $20, $50 at a time, regularly. $66 million raised last month, all coming from people like you and me, instead of high-powered corporate lobbyists, cronies and PACs. The campaign is owned by several million Americans.

One of the first changes he's planning once he's in office, most importantly, is to go through all of Bush's signing statements and executive orders and throw out anything that's un-Constitutional. And he taught Constitutional Law for 12 years, so he knows it forwards, backwards, upside-down, slantways and sideways. This means...habeus corpus will come back. And yes, he did vote for the FISA bill but has pledged to revoke telecom immunity once he's in office. He's also going to close Guantanamo Bay and put the men in there on trial. Like they should have done years ago.

Let's see, what else...Ah yes. $18 billion into the American public school system, every year. Train and hire teachers.

$4000 college tuition credit in exchange for a social service pledge of two years. Work at homeless, battered women and animal shelters, Peace Corps, Conservation Corps, civic engineering, cancer clinic volunteering, hospital volunteering, that sort of thing. The way things are going now, if you had a student loan for college, you'll never pay it off.

He's very pro-alternative energy but I'm not over the moon about his support for "clean" coal and nuclear power. As far as I'm concerned, nuclear power is more trouble than it's worth, especially since we have wave generation, geothermal, wind and solar power and a few towns are experimenting with conversion of their sewage treatment plants into methane generation plants. He will create 5 million "green sector" jobs in the energy industry and will put 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road. He'd also end our dependence on Middle East and Venezuelan crude oil within 10 years. By the end of his first term, 10% of our energy will come from renewable sources. He's also crack down on energy speculation, which is why we get $100-barrel oil.

Don't believe the "socialized medicine" rube going around, his health care plan isn't a hand-out. He'll open up the federal employees' health insurance plan to everyone. The plan doesn't exclude based on pre-existing conditions, so nobody is turned away, by law. And the premiums are only $175 a month (as opposed to $500+). This is a smart move since it's a Costco approach: it will bring millions more subscribers into the fold to negotiate and leverage a commensurate price drop. It's group-buying power, nothing else. John Kerry and my own Senators, Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, Olympia Snowe of Maine, among others on the Hill, have been trying to open up the Federal Employees' medical insurance plan for years. Barack Obama will do it.

But the bottom line and most important part is...he can't do anything if McCain/Palin get voted into the White House.
Afterthought: A lot of people are going to expect immediate changes. That ain't gonna happen! We're in a cesspit, no thanks to Bush, and you can't climb out of the Black Hole of Calcutta just like that. It's gonna take years, and it's not gonna happen if everyone just sits back and watches for it to happen. This campaign is about the American people, and it's gonna be a hands-on, DIY exercise in recovery. He's a coordinator, it's up to us. Most good leaders are little more than a rallying point for their people: leaders are judged not on what they do, but on what they inspire their people to do. Hitler never killed a single Jew, and Thomas Jefferson didn't lay a single brick of Washington DC.

[MattSullivan]

Sorry. Just can't go withthe democrats immigration policy

[Terastas]

Man, doesn't it figure I lose my net connection just days before John McCain announces Sarah Palin as his running mate? I didn't think he could possibly look any more petty and shallow, but lo and behold, he pulled it off. If he wins, that settles it: Democracy is no more.

*sings*
Come this November we gonna' vote Obama
Daylight come when McCain goes home.
He thinks you voted Hillary cuz' she got no banana
Daylight come when McCain goes home.

[vrikasatma]

Nihil desperandum, the novelty seems to be wearing off. The NASCAR dads are finding other diversions.
For awhile, her sobriquet on Digg was "MILF." I won't translate because this is a PG-13 site, but think about 20-something computer troglodytes and use your imagination.

The raging backstory is that McCain was going to tap Lieberman for his running mate, but the Theocons assailed him with a barrage of political Howlers [Harry Potter wink] and his handlers told him to drop the Gentleman From Connecticut like a hot potato. Cue Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh: "Here's your next running mate [stepping aside to let Sarah Palin through]!"

After eight years of CheneyBush, the GOP don't have their work cut out for them, the writing's on the wall. They don't have a snowball's chance. 2008 will not be a Red Election. The way I'm seeing it is McCain and the GOP are running only because they don't want this election to look like a slam-dunk anointing ceremony. And it shouldn't be. We've seen what happens to nations when they go unicameral, it always fails. The Neocons had their day in the sun and look where it got us. You don't have to look any further than the day's headlines.

[Midnight]

For awhile, her sobriquet on Digg was "MILF." I won't translate because this is a PG-13 site, but think about 20-something computer troglodytes and use your imagination.

I've seen her decribed as "VPILF", which honestly makes me wonder about the ethics of the person making the comment in the first place for quite a few different reasons. I had actually heard of Palin before she had been chosen by McCain, and have opinions about her which I am not going to share here as they would make liberals' toes curl, never mind conservatives'.

But this might make matters seem a bit more amusing for a little while.

We've seen what happens to nations when they go unicameral, it always fails.

I think you mean something different. New Zealand's been unicameral since Sid Holland sent the "Suicide Squad" up to the Legislative Council to vote themselves out of existence and we've done reasonably well since then.

[vrikasatma]

I think you mean something different. New Zealand's been unicameral since Sid Holland sent the "Suicide Squad" up to the Legislative Council to vote themselves out of existence and we've done reasonably well since then.

I stand corrected. I didn't know about New Zealand.
I was thinking about the Soviet bloc and the US government 2002 - 2006, when Republicans controlled all three branches of government.

[Midnight]

The United States, 2002 - 2006, was still bicameral - it just had the same party controlling both branches (which is actually fairly normal in bicameral parliaments). I'm not sure what the Soviet parliamentary arrangements were but all practical power was with the boss and his cronies.

Since New Zealand went to a proportional voting system in 1996, no one party has been able to govern other than in conjunction with one or two other parties, which has acted as an effective brake on the sort of excesses seen in the decade or so previous.

[Terastas]

After eight years of CheneyBush, the GOP don't have their work cut out for them, the writing's on the wall. They don't have a snowball's chance. 2008 will not be a Red Election. The way I'm seeing it is McCain and the GOP are running only because they don't want this election to look like a slam-dunk anointing ceremony. And it shouldn't be. We've seen what happens to nations when they go unicameral, it always fails. The Neocons had their day in the sun and look where it got us. You don't have to look any further than the day's headlines.

*nods* I know I said it before, but I'll say it again: I don't think the Republicans are counting on McCain winning. This is almost exactly what they did with Reagan/Bush Sr.; they screwed up the economy, then let the Democrats come into the White House and fix it. Then in 2000, Bush Jr. moved back in and screwed up the economy all over again, so now the businessmen are ready to go back to business and let the Democrats have to fix it. The McCain campaign is just one great big distraction designed to A) keep themselves from having to concede defeat, B) distract Americans while they're cleaning out the safes and shredding all the evidence, and C) force the Democrats to piss money away on a reelection campaign that could have otherwise been spent on worthy causes. McCain's age is already an issue -- they know he won't be able to run again in 2012, and even if he does, his failed 2008 election will keep him from doing so (the same way 2000/2004 kept Gore/Kerry from trying again).

Still, I don't think anyone told McCain this. If he knew it was futile, I think he would have tried to keep a clean campaign instead of resorting to so many cheap shots and publicity stunts. It shouldn't be any doubt that he chose Palin just because she's a woman -- she's been a governor for, what, two years and she's already under investigation for corruption? Honestly, I'm beginning to think McCain's "advisors" (read: corporate sponsors) chose Palin as his running mate because they're eager to weed her out of the party as well. Both she and McCain seem to have that "how dare you!" approach to questions they don't know the answers to; they're not good businessmen, and thanks to the eight years of Bush/Cheney, business is all the party is about anymore.

The sad thing is that Michael Palin (my hero) probably would be more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin, and that's even taking into account the fact that he's British and therefore ineligible.

[Wselfwulf]

I can't take it anymore. That whole "both parties suck" notion? That's propaganda. All the meat puppets to the corporations and the special interest groups want you to believe there is no such thing as a decent politician because that will reduce the chances of you going out and voting for one.

Instead the fate of our nation was left in the hands of people that chose George W. Bush because they'd "like to have a beer with him."

So please, spare me your "all politicians suck" garbage. If it weren't for those kind of sentiments, we'd have a Nobel Peace Prize recipient in the White House instead of Pinky & The Brain. A government corrupted from top to bottom; that's what apathy gives you.

Don't like the government?
Get involved in it.

Still don't like the government?
Get more involved in it.

Don't feel like getting involved because American Gladiators is on?
*shrugs* Sucks to be you.

To get involved in government is to perpetuate it. If democracy is 'people rule all' then mutual policy is called for, not the faux idealisations of sensationalised figureheads. You know we anarchists are right.

[vrikasatma]

McCain's age is already an issue -- they know he won't be able to run again in 2012, and even if he does, his failed 2008 election will keep him from doing so (the same way 2000/2004 kept Gore/Kerry from trying again).

I heard some early rumblings that the Repubs might field Jesse Ventura for their 2012 candidate.
Intriguing. He's one of the "Libertarians that durst not speak the name"/Republicanesque politicians. I'm not 100% up on his political stances or governing style, but maybe Minnesotan Pack members who lived there under his watch can weigh in.

The sad thing is that Michael Palin (my hero) probably would be more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin, and that's even taking into account the fact that he's British and therefore ineligible.

Having met said gentleman, I have to agree with you! That's one Palin Presidency I could get behind. (and yes, his favourite colour is blue)
Thanks for the lightening-uppage.

[Terastas]

I seriously doubt it. Not because he's unqualified, but just because, last I checked, Ventura was highly opposed to the two-party system in general. They'll probably just prop up another loose cannon they don't want to have to contend with in 2016 to run in 2012 because it's going to take longer than four years to reverse all the damage Bush/Cheney have done.

Personally, I can't believe anyone would vote for McCain at this point. Is "liberal" really that much a dirty word that so many people would still vote for such a blatantly petty lying hypocrite just to not have to associate with it?

[vrikasatma]

I'm on three other sites regularly: Digg.com, MyBarackObama, and Myspace.
In the case of Myspace, you choose what you're going to read and deal with. You surround yourself with friends who agree with you and bounce antagonists and spammers. You don't get a real-time, real-life cross-section.

At MyBO, I'm surrounded by friendlies. We use our power-of-numbers to exclude and marginalize antagonists, with the exception of fools who we find amusing and then it's tolerated. That's not a real benchmarker, either.

Now Digg is where the striations happen! You can't really exclude contact with unfriendlies and antis, the best you can do is Bury their comments and, when you get involved in a big network of Friends and Fans, shout to each other about antagonistic and malicious postings and warn each other against bad actors. Digg is down-in-the-trenches politics.

And what's happening over at Digg...
I've identified these memes.
Last winter, we had to deal with the histrionics and cut-and-paste spamming of RON PAUL. He had the biggest following on Digg The Candidates, standing at around 18,000 fans, and they were out for blood. They cruised around in packs, attacking other candidates' friends with dogpile Buries, flame wars, attempting to entangle Diggers with low network ratings in red herring traps, and generally spamming every single political thread with scores if not hundreds of one-liners like "RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT '08!" Very domineering. Then, in true sociopathic form, they whined about being misunderstood and picked on when people called them out on their s**t.

After the primaries were over, McCain's handlers saw that Digg was a potent tool and a potent threat, since his network was one of the smallest. They had hardcore Neocons go over and do like the Paulbots did, i.e. spam the boards and load up the front page with McCain-positive stories. The John McCain campaign took Obama's lead in giving points to people that did that, in exchange for campaign schwag. There's a rumour that Karl Rove paid some of them, which would add racketeering to his list of crimes (in addition to Contempt of Congress).

The McCainites...heh...I just visualized him with fangs... ...seem to be using three lines of attack in their campaign.
=> One: Denigrate and bury any submitted article if it's from the Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Rawstory or Firedoglake.
=> Two: Bring up the usual Obama smears of "Socialist," "born a Muslim," "Where is his birth certificate? Where was he born?," the Reverend Wright scandal (personally I think Sarah Palin's minister is scarier than a hundred Rev. Wrights), "He has no experience," "He's leaving his half-brother to starve in a tin shack," and "Empty suit who does nothing but talk." One particularly nasty 'bot said after Barack's rally in Berlin, "I can think of another guy who inspired huge crowds in Germany by being a good talker," he got hung out to dry.
The latest smear is that Barack has connections with Ayers, a known terrorist. Yeah, he met the guy when he was 8 years old. A perennial favourite ruse is to say that we'll all be paying more taxes under him even though someone has put up a page that shows you what your Obama tax cut would be after you fill in a few income/family size fields.
=> Three: Bury any anti-McCain/Palin story "as inaccurate," even when — sometimes, especially — direct, contextual and explicit quotes and verifiable cites are involved. We think this is where Rove's Raiders were operating. Fortunately Digg recently changed their algorithm to prevent this kind of malicious gaming of the system.
And the old stand-by, resort to insults and vicious name-calling when all else fails. Which we read as "death throes" and proceed to mercilessly, double-digit bury their comments and report as offensive.

This is further complicated by the tinfoil-hat whonks who go around blathering "CFR, Zbigniew Brzinski, FISA vote" and the remnants of the Ron Paul Revolution 'bots. We just bury them when they get new e-mail accounts and re-register.

The only good thing I can say about this week's stock market crash is that it seems to be giving Barack a boost in the polls, since he indisputably has the better economic plan.

[Uniform Two Six]

To get involved in government is to perpetuate it... You know we anarchists are right.

Hey, dude. With all due respect, if you want to see what anarchy (in the sense of life without government) is really like, go take a look at Somalia.

[Terastas]

To get involved in government is to perpetuate it... You know we anarchists are right.

Hey, dude. With all due respect, if you want to see what anarchy (in the sense of life without government) is really like, go take a look at Somalia.

Anarchy is just a catch phrase used by angsties, emos and motorcycle gangs. Really, if you think anarchy is the way to go, I pity you.

[vrikasatma]

Anarchy sounds great to a young ear in theory, but keep in mind that between the Soviet regime and the Taliban, Afghanistan was in anarchy. The warlords held power and were driving the regular people up a wall and halfway across the ceiling, to put it mildly.

Cue the Taliban. "We'll end the warlords' oppression," they said, and the people flocked to them. What the Taliban didn't say was that they'd take on the mantle of oppressor so hard and fast it made the warlords look cuddly.

In an anarchic society, the power that eventually rises to the top and seizes control is usually BAD NEWS. Look at history; it is confirmed again and again, almost without exception.