"The Lesser Of Two Evils"...Why, Obama Isn't That Bad!

[ninakat]

What Nordic said. All of it. Biting my tongue for anything additional.

[jingofever]

If it makes you feel better, go vote. But you might as well just jack off in your bathroom for all the effect it will have on world politics. Seriously. And jacking off will actually make you feel better.

Should I jack off with my right hand, or my left hand?

[Nordic]

If it makes you feel better, go vote. But you might as well just jack off in your bathroom for all the effect it will have on world politics. Seriously. And jacking off will actually make you feel better.

Should I jack off with my right hand, or my left hand?

They're both attached to the same owner, right?

[Elvis]

Bullshit. Prove that you've ever voted in your life. Prove that you've ever registered to vote, received a sample ballot, voted in an actual polling place, or otherwise performed any remotely informed function of citizenry. Unless you've had a lobotomy between 2008 and now I see no evidence that you're even dimly aware of the procedures for voting in California, let alone any race but the least important, namely US president. Ditto your thuggy pal Nordic. If you either of you have, you've never shown any trace of knowing anything about any race, candidate, office, initiative, or measure except the ones your stupid tee-vee flashes in your face 24/7 every four years.

Executive summary: prove you've ever voted in any actual election.

That's absurd and offensive, and it's funny how wrong you were. The fact is, you were simply unfair to 8bit, so self-sure of your accusation which was the real "Bullshit." You're unfair to 8bit, you're unfair to Assange, you're unfair to OWS and the list goes on; you paste "spookjob" wherever you feel like slinging your slander with wildly unfair assumptions about people and their motives.

I don't think you're a disinfo agent. I just think you're really Wrong about many things. But: by using your own same faulty logic, kneejerk judgement and leaps to patently unfair conclusions unfounded by evidence, a case might be made that you are the "spookjob from the get-go."

If anyone did that---in the same way you so cavalierly accuse others---you'd think it was unfair, and you'd be right.

---

There was a thread like this four years ago. Would anyone really rather have McCain today? I'll take the small difference on offer. Jill Stein looks great but I will probably vote against Romney.

[Nordic]

I actually think McCain might have been better, because he's old and curmudgeonly enough that he might actually speak and act on his own behalf once or twice, instead of being the smooth "yes man" that Obama is to the PTB's.

Not that it would have made any real difference.

[8bitagent]

Ok ok...I didn't want to start a flame war. I kind of see what Lupercal is saying. It is possible "they" can't wait to replace Obama with Romney and get the real crazy shit to hit the fan.
It's a possibility. I don't know why Lupercal thinks Im a right winger, my skin crawls with most conservative "values"

[IanEye]

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"I tell you I am the greatest man in the world and it doesn't trouble me in the least." - Mel Lyman







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with
with out



who will deny
it's what the fighting is all about




“Will you welcome please Daria Halprin and Mark Frechette!”
With that the young couple walked across the stage of The Dick Cavett Show and shook hands with fellow panelists Mel Brooks and Rex Reed.

The two young stars of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point didn’t smile. They didn’t wave to the audience. They sat down and stared off camera.
It was one of the most awkward interviews Dick Cavett would ever conduct. Each question was greeted with long moments of hesitation.

The interview subjects acted as if they were appearing against their will.

*

[Luther Blissett]

Well I'm confused, as usual.

Vote Cornel West!

I will be appropriating a lot of 8bit's talking points for a future essay at some point in this election cycle since he outlines it all pretty neatly.

I do agree with lupercal that a Romney win would be devastating, but I can't in any good conscience vote for Obama based on my totally intolerable levels of disappointment and what I see as a worsening of Bush-era policies. I also recognize that by writing in West I'm committing an act of privilege - if Romney wins, I'll likely be able to keep my job, for instance.

[justdrew]

seems to me frustrating Netanyahu is reason enough to vote against mittler by voting for obama.

[MayDay]

While I won't personally be taking part in the sham this year, I find it damn near culpable to publicly encourage others to follow suit. Sorta like those rightwing propaganda campaigns aimed at keeping minority voters away from the poles that we hear about from time to time, only with (ostensibly) different motivations.

I can only assume, given ample evidence, that many, many more babies will die under Romney/Ryan than under Obama. So I do wish you'd find a better angle than this (imo) half-hearted lament of dead babies, since you apparently haven't thought this one through too thoroughly.

I don't like the whole 'lesser of evil' bullshit any more than the average ri reader, but something just smells fishy here. I mean, why even bother when you know full well that you're preachin' to the choir?

You make my point for me.

Why do you think more babies will get killed under Romney than under Obama?

Seriously? Do you see the way he sucks up to Isreal and Netanyahu, or are you hiding under a rock? The dude is just itching to get us tangled up in Iran.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 42156.html

..."So perhaps a better way to anticipate the foreign policy of a Romney administration is in the advisers with which he surrounds himself. Of his 40 or so advisers, 70 per cent of them worked for George W Bush. Twenty per cent have signed letters drafted by the Project for a New American Century, the neo-conservative think-tank that brought you the brains behind the war on Iraq. Fitting into both these categories is John Bolton, George W Bush's hawkish ambassador to the United Nations. Other neo-conservative leftovers include: Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency who created warrantless wiretapping programmes under Bush; Robert Joseph, credited with making Bush's false claim about Iraq's efforts to obtain enriched uranium from Niger; Cofer Black, former vice-president of Blackwater USA; and Michael Chertoff, Bush’s Secretary of Homeland Security.

But the neo-conservative delegation to Romney is not the full story. His team also includes Henry Kissinger, James Baker and George Shultz, all respected secretaries of states in past Republican administrations. Furthermore, it is impossible to know (given the policy ambiguities discussed above), who influences Romney the most.

So let's zoom in for a moment on our region of choice. The campaign's Middle East and North Africa Working Group consists of Mary Beth Long, Meghan O'Sullivan and Walid Phares. Long, with a lengthy career in the CIA, was Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs from 2007 to 2009; O'Sullivan was Senior Director for Iraq in Bush's National Security Council and his Deputy National Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan. Both choices fit squarely into the Bush administration's Iraq pursuits, the neo-conservative project par excellence."....

How did Obama kill LESS babies than Bush?

I believe this speaks for itself. Hope it answers your question.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Now, granted the civilian death toll in Afgahnistan rose by 14% from the year before in Obamas first year as president, the sort of numbers we're talking about are significantly lower than the casualties suffered in Iraq under Bush- roughly 2500-2800 per year 2009-2010, and, according to the UN, another 3000 in 2011. Unfortunately civilian casualties are much more difficult to keep track of in Afgahnistan than in Iraq, and of course we can't trust the UN to give us accurate numbers on these things. Wikipedia states that some sources claim that as many as 15,000 civillians may have been slaughtered in Afghanistan in 2011 alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_c ... %93present)

Let me be clear that I do not believe that any of this negates the crimes that Obummer has indeed committed, and that I feel it would be a crime in itself to overlook the death toll the region has suffered under his leadership. Let me also reiterate that I will not personally be voting in this scam of an election, no matter how much I may dislike Romney. I am simply answering your question, regarding dead babies. By no means am I attempting to downplay the attrocities committed under the Obama regime.

Obama is currently doing nothing but extending the Bush policies everywhere.

Yes, his domestic and economic policies do indeed resemble those of Bush.

Why do you think there's actually a choice between Romney and Obama?

Why do you think any of the PTB's actually want to have Obama out of power? They don't.

Can you say with 100% certainty that there is a single, unified PTB pulling the strings in the background? That there are no opposing factions within the spheres of power and influence? That there are no differing views and plans concerning the correct methods of control that should be exerted on the herd, and how those methods should be implemented? Because if you can't, I'd say this is an irrelevant and manipulative question.

If, ahem, "they" don't want Obama out of power, then why are so many huge corporations giving enormous sums of money to the Romney campaign? I suspect this fact betrays a lack of cohesion within the top echelons of power. Is it beyond your ability to even consider that some of those in positions of great power and wealth, most of whom are quite capable of colluding with peers of similair views, could possibly have different goals than the currently dominant agenda?

All of that said, I am actually of the opinion that the majority of the really big players would prefer 4 more years of Obama. He has placated the faux liberals, lulled the progressive and anti war movement to sleep, sucked up to Wallstreet and Corporate America like the good little puppet that he is, and perhaps even staved off the hammering of the last nails in the GOP's coffin. This would explain some things- not the least of which the medias' treatment of Obama in comparison to their treatment of Romney, and the very choice of Romney as the GOP candidate in the first place, imo a lack-luster personality who really doesn't appeal to average republican voters. I refuse to believe that Romney is the best the GOP could come up with- he's more of a sheep in wolf's clothing than the reverse, at least compared to what we would expect from the party. I'd say the GOP is holding out for 2016, when they will unveil their newest "It's Morning in America" campaign, with a lovable, "God fearing", completely fascist douche at the helm.

If it makes you feel better, go vote. But you might as well just jack off in your bathroom for all the effect it will have on world politics. Seriously. And jacking off will actually make you feel better.

I feel fine, thanks. And what's with the vulgar imagery? Seems downright disrepectful to a very serious conversation, and probably lowers the level of discourse here.

I really wish voting made a difference. I may go out and vote anyway, and I'll probably vote for Roseanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan. At least those ladies have a clue as to what is going on.

I'm right there with you on that one.

I'd vote for RFK but he's dead. I'd vote for MLK but he's dead. I'd vote for Malcolm X but he's dead. Hell, I'd vote for Tupac Shakur but he's dead. Make any sense yet? Seeing a pattern?

Yes, I see a pattern, Nordic. I see a pattern of you practically dominating nearly every thread that interests me on RI, I see a pattern of constant repitition of points that I mostly agree with you on, that become tedious only because of the rate at which you repeat yourself with such angst and cynicism. I know your views and attitudes nearly as well as I know my own, because I spend way too much time reading the threads on this site, and have for many years. It's been my homepage since '07. I hardly get outside of it most days, and that's because I lead a busy life, and don't have time to sift through the bullshit I find on Google news and nearly every other news summary available on the web. I know that I can still trust RI to keep me relatively well informed with regard to current national and world events, deep politics, and geopolitical developments.

And: Tupak Shakur? Seriously?

[8bitagent]

Funny Nordic should mention RFK and MLK. I don't feel Obama is even 1/100th the greatness of those men. Why did we have so many great leaders back then(last year of JFK, RFK, MLK, Mcgovern, heck even Chrisholm in 1972) but "Progressive" leaders to day are simply evil lite?

[Nordic]

Romney is like those rich guys who think they're really good at poker who come to Vegas with their millions to play the real pros.

The pros job is to con them out of their money. They suck up to them, pretend to be their friends, blow kisses at their egos, then slowly bleed them dry.

(I happen to have first hand knowledge of this.)

Romney is just an idiot tool, dripping with money, who is being used by the real pros, the guys whose names aren't in the headlines (just like the poker pros in Vegas) to perpetuate the game. And they've already taken a lot of his money and before the day is over they'll take a lot more.

Anyone throwing money after Romney is in the same idiot class as Romney. I don't care how rich they are.

Romney is an amateur.

Of course, one could argue that Reagan was an amateur, too. But he was very effective because he was a professional actor and people could project their desires onto his blank slate. Just like Obama. The people who knew even during the Reagan years were quite aware that Reagan was just a puppet.

But Romney has no appeal. Shoe polish in his hair, the false smile, the false sincerity, the false everything.

If you're worried Romney is gonna win, you should step back and take a look at why you think this, and why you fear it, and what has made you feel this way.

Which is something everybody should do every step of the way anyway.

Whenever you feel fear, think about WHY you feel the fear. Discover its source.

Our rulers are wildly successful at scaring every single demographic of us that exists.

[Luther Blissett]

Funny Nordic should mention RFK and MLK. I don't feel Obama is even 1/100th the greatness of those men. Why did we have so many great leaders back then(last year of JFK, RFK, MLK, Mcgovern, heck even Chrisholm in 1972) but "Progressive" leaders to day are simply evil lite?

It's just a new era. In simplest terms, the Overton Window has slipped too far right after the useful orphan Carter ushered in the age of Reagan. Once that Moore's Law started to gain momentum coinciding with an age of excess requiring strong, deregulatory leadership and the great seance of entertainment and the media began to modernize, the game had to change. More money equalled less humanists. It's why I just don't think we're going to have another voice like was allowed during the cultural revolution, a naive and yes still literary nation didn't yet deride intellectualism or require a juiced-up Brawndo discourse. We might have great progressives now, styled in their own midcentury modernist ways, but they're going to be relegated to the fringe no matter how likeable.

I was about to wonder what kind of person it would take to be a truly populist progressive, but do we really need a hero or can we just skip all that?

[dada]

My interest in Roseanne lasted all of 5 minutes. She's just not the candidate for me. I wouldn't have even given her a second thought if it weren't for Cindy Sheehan. I think Cindy's not into running with Roseanne anymore, either, but is staying on the ticket anyway, to help out the drive to keep Peace and Freedom on the ballot, or to not rock Roseanne's boat or whatever. I like Cindy.

I was about to wonder what kind of person it would take to be a truly populist progressive, but do we really need a hero or can we just skip all that?

Let's skip it.

[justdrew]

you vote and you vote democratic. If things aren't perfect, make it better.