The 2012 "Election" thread

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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Nordic » Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:47 pm

I never thought I'd see this inhuman level of amorality on this board.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:49 pm

Nordic wrote:Or are you trying to tell me that SOMEHOW, in your deluded mentally FUCKED UP universe, a vote for Obama isn't SUPPORT for Obama?

Whatever. You guys are out of your fucking minds with denial.


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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:51 pm

Nordic wrote:I never thought I'd see this inhuman level of amorality on this board.


You mean that someone would be slinging propaganda for the Republicans? Nah, seen it before.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Rory » Mon Oct 22, 2012 2:29 pm

Whether you vote, or do not vote, there will be a declared 'winner' come 2 weeks on Wednesday.

There will be a result and it will be one of two candidates. This is not open to debate - That there may be policy overlaps/differences is sure.

If you live in LA, the state result will go in Obama's favor - nationally this may or may not be so.

What I do not understand is the criticism of Obama, completely removed from any kind of wider context. If he was the only man to hold office, and you were applying general moral standards, then there is much to criticize.

Most of the drone/baby killer stuff seems to come from the libertarians: Which is frankly risible, but they are holding him to a higher standard of scrutiny than Romney, in the death and destruction stakes. Obama is not the war machine apparatus - he is a cog: He can and will be replaced in two weeks, or in four years. Another inevitability.

Because, you know Romney will double down on every piece of shit Obama has done, and will bring social policies and Supreme Court appointments which will make everyones life more misery. This is the added bonus that Mitt brings with him. Imagine 1-3 new Antonin Scalia's

Women. Minorities. African Americans. Latinos. Gays. Children. Poor/Middle Class. There is 85%+ of the country. The GOP will bullshit the poor (men, mostly) into voting against their best interests and obviously, the 1-5%ers will do well - even if Adolph Hitler rose again, their wealth would inure them to the worst fascistic excesses (or enable their flight to comfort elsewhere).

So, there is a point. mutilated brown baby semantics aside, a vote for the GOP is a vote against the rights, freedoms and survival of most of the country - and those same poor kids in central Asia will not notice the difference (cept maybe for the persian kids who will be celebrating with GOP and Israeli fireworks).

A vote not made for Obama (in much of the country outside California, New York, etc..) is a vote for the GOP - it is that simple. By non-voting/3rd party candidate voting, you are voting for restrictions in women's healthcare, gay rights and the remaining economic provisions that help poor and minority peoples. A non-vote, is a vote against women, children and non-white people. If you disagree with any of the socially repressive policies of the GOP, you must vote for Obama.

It is your white liberal privileged entitlement, to stamp your feet and call Obama a murderer. But the replacement will murder just the same or worse.

If Romney is elected, I hope you do not suffer the consequences that might lead you to regret it.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby ninakat » Mon Oct 22, 2012 5:07 pm

The blame game here is really rather unbalanced.

On one hand, we have those who blame the non-voters (or voters of neither Dem or Repub) for being complicit in the horrors of a presumed Romney victory. On another hand, we have those (including myself) blaming those who vote for Obama for being complicit in supporting a war criminal. But there are plenty of people, maybe not on this board, but out in the real world, who blame those who don't vote for Romney as complicit in four more years of Obama horrors.

There.

Now everyone is complicit, to one degree or another, depending on one's particular passion or lack of it.

Blood on everyone's hands, right? But what of the actual perpetrators themselves? Will we just keep fighting over the crumbs they feed us, until we do ourselves in?

How about a truce?
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Elvis » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:34 pm

It's hard to "vote for murder" but harder to bring on the Ryanation of the US.

Rory wrote:Romney will double down on every piece of shit Obama has done, and will bring social policies and Supreme Court appointments which will make everyones life more misery. This is the added bonus that Mitt brings with him. Imagine 1-3 new Antonin Scalia's


As Wombaticus has so smartly pointed out, that 'thin slice' of difference between candidates includes millions of people who'll be further cut off from services.

Those are the long-range consequences of a Romney/Ryan victory. Not to to mention the war on Iran Romney has promised (one promise I expect he'd keep).

Rory wrote:It is your white liberal privileged entitlement, to stamp your feet and call Obama a murderer. But the replacement will murder just the same or worse.


I'd say worse. We have every reason to believe the murder will be worse under Romney.

Yeah, it'll have been worth the high-road foot-stomping when Romney pulls the hair trigger on Iran.



All that said, my ballot is still sitting on my desk. I'll have to psyche myself up to follow my own advice.


Ninacat, thanks for the peace pipe. Let's not allow the bastards to turn us on one another. Everyone has to do what they believe they have to do (or not do).
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby justdrew » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:11 pm

Elvis wrote:Ninacat, thanks for the peace pipe. Let's not allow the bastards to turn us on one another. Everyone has to do what they believe they have to do (or not do).


indeed. peace. Image
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby NeonLX » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:16 pm

Seconding the gratitude for the peace pipe here.

And, as always, I find myself wishing that peace pipe smokage was legal.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby compared2what? » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:39 pm

Nordic wrote:Or are you trying to tell me that SOMEHOW, in your deluded mentally FUCKED UP universe, a vote for Obama isn't SUPPORT for Obama?


No. I'm trying to tell you that in the deluded mentally FUCKED UP universe of the extreme right --which has a long history of both vote suppression and calling its opponents baby-killers -- a non-vote for Obama is SUPPORT for Mitt Romney.

Because I don't care what you do with your vote. I just care what you do with the right-wing's propaganda, if that's "accept it unquestioningly as if it were entirely without implications beyond its inherent emotional appeal."

My aim isn't to fight with you over anything personal. It's just that when too many people do that^^, it leads to fascism sometimes.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:44 pm

I do find it rather surprising that no mod has warned Nordic for his calling out other posters in such ways: "I've seen fucking DRUG ADDICTS less in denial than you idiots. Seriously. That is no hyperbole." And for more.

An actual troll has rarely brought such uninformed argument to these pages.

I'm very disappointed with you, Nordic. You're capable of better arguments without such colorful language.

You think Obama's responsible for the deaths of children, but the families blame all Americans for their loss, not just our president. Think what you will and act in any way that satisfies yourself. And try your best to ignore the role the taxes you pay pays for the bombs killing other peoples children. For me, it's beyond belief that you actually are so intolerably ignorant while knowing you've spent so many years reading information about how the world operates that's been posted.

The argument has been presented repeatedly that a vote of conscience for a third party candidate or for Romney will only result in things becoming much worse here for a generation or longer.

You do have children, too. Your decision will have a direct impact upon them. And from all you've written, I'm afraid that your choice in this election will not make things better for them, but will make things considerable worse, sooner rather than later.

In voting for Obama, I'm voting for a democratic ideology opposing that of the radical right. It's that simple.

You also ignore the fact that every Congressional district has an Army, Navy base or port, or Air Force base and several industries supporting the military-industrial complex and it is these that rule the day, not the President. This industry is what 'expresses' and 'protects' our corporate interests at home and abroad. Blame Obama for their devious manipulation if you'd like, but it really works the other way around.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Fresno_Layshaft » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:11 am

From Arthur Silber latest post.

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.ca/


If you vote for Obama or Romney, that is certainly your right -- although you will forever forfeit the right to speak of "rights" at all. If a human being can be murdered for any reason, or for no reason at all, merely on the arbitrary order of someone who claims the power to issue such orders, she has no rights at all. You thus sanction the destruction of all rights, of all human beings -- including yours. The victim may be Mrs. Hamilton, or Joanna -- or you.

If you vote for Obama or Romney, do so proudly. I want you to say: "I vote for Obama/Romney proudly. I am proud to be a knowing accomplice to their murders, including the murders of innocent human beings." Say that, and those of us who refuse to surrender our souls will know where you stand.

This is not a complicated issue. It is stunningly straightforward. Those who seek to complicate and confuse it do so because they will not identify the meaning of their support, either to themselves or to anyone else. When they wish still to be regarded as "civilized," murderers and their accomplices will engage in endless irrelevant arguments and invent complexities where none exist. Don't let them get away with it. They are knowing accomplices to murder. Make them say it.



The claim of a "right" to murder anyone for any reason is the greatest expression of evil we can imagine. Both Obama and Romney claim the President has such a right. Obama has actualized his belief on many occasions. Any individual who claims such a right cannot, by definition, represent a "lesser evil" of any kind. He claims as his own the greatest evil possible. Every other issue, no matter how important it may be in itself, no matter how passionately we may feel about it, is necessarily less significant.

For the German engineer, taking the "oath of fidelity" represented a "certain and immediate" evil. The same must be true of support for a person who claims the right to unrestricted, unbounded murder. As the engineer said: "I had to commit a positive evil, there and then, in the hope of a possible good later on. The good outweighed the evil; but the good was only a hope, the evil was a fact."

It is a fact that Obama and Romney both claim the President possesses absolute power, the power over life itself -- and this with regard to every human being alive. It is a fact that a vote for Obama or Romney means that you support their claim. Demand that anyone who says he or she will vote for Obama or Romney declare: "I vote for Obama/Romney proudly. I am proud to be a knowing accomplice to their murders, including the murders of innocent human beings."

Make them say it. I still have hope for the future, but whatever hope I have rests on our understanding, identifying and accepting the meaning of what we are doing. To vote for Obama or Romney is to be a knowing accomplice to their murders. If that is what you are, say it. Say it -- and be damned.

Then we can defend ourselves.
Last edited by Fresno_Layshaft on Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Fresno_Layshaft » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:33 am

I'm tired of reading that if you use roads and running water then you're supporting the 'empire', paying for bombs with the sales tax on your winter boots. What non-sense! Using the roads is hardly something one can avoid in life, unless your a shut-in. If you don't pay your property tax, you lose your house. That is state coercion, its not voluntary. No one has any say on what their taxes pay for (another good reason not to participate). It could go to a hospital or it could go to the military. Voting to sustain the legitimacy of the ruling class is something you have full control over, however.

I wonder if anyone would have guts to say that Afghans are "responsible" for the atrocities of the Taliban, if they happen to have had the misfortune to live in area controlled by them and are therefore forced to abide by their rules? How is that different than saying that Nordic is just as responsible for drone attacks because he has to pay taxes or go to jail?
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby Elvis » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:06 am

Not voting for Obama might make one feel righteous, but it won't lessen death, destruction, poverty or the power of Big Money.

Allowing Romney to win will almost certainly increase death, destruction, poverty and the power of Big Money.


Your choice.





Also, please consider that Obama relies on the intelligence agencies, who seem to have no trouble telling lies to presidents they don't like or trust. Is Jimmy Carter is a baby killer, too? He sent a million bucks to the right-wing anti-Sandinista squads in Nicaragua, undoubtedly on the basis of sexed-up intel and the advice of people like Brzezinski.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby compared2what? » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:25 am

Fresno_Layshaft wrote:I'm tired of reading that if you use roads and running water then you're supporting the 'empire', paying for bombs with the sales tax on your winter boots. What non-sense! Using the roads is hardly something one can avoid in life, unless your a shut-in. If you don't pay your property tax, you lose your house. That is state coercion, its not voluntary. No one has any say on what their taxes pay for (another good reason not to participate). It could go to a hospital or it could go to the military. Voting to sustain the legitimacy of the ruling class is something you have full control over, however.

I wonder if anyone would have guts to say that Afghans are "responsible" for the atrocities of the Taliban, if they happen to have had the misfortune to live in area controlled by them and are therefore forced to abide by their rules?


No one is forcing any American member of this board to use the roads, or to own property, or, ftm, to remain in the United States, living in greater abundance and ease than he or she might do in another place, where all the needments of life WEREN'T available to him or her thanks to the global clout of the American war machine and/or the benificial economic effect of American war profits.

Those are choices.

Furthermore, the state doesn't need anybody's vote in order to wage war. It needs everybody's money and everybody's participation in keeping the wheels turning.

We're all complicit. Because being unhappy about and/or not appreciating the privileges you enjoy and/or taking them for granted and/or lacking the courage, imagination or will to renounce them doesn't actually nullify having them..

Sorry to hear you're sick of that fact. But not that sorry. Because it's kind of a luxury complaint.
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Re: The 2012 "Election" thread

Postby jingofever » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:42 am

I watched most of the four debates and don't recall anything specific about the environment coming up. After Deep Water Horizon, Fukushima, accelerating melting in the arctic, and a summer of extreme temperatures I thought somebody might bring it up. All I know is we are going to drill more oil, burn more coal, and hopefully have a good time doing it.
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