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

[Wombaticus Rex]

Is that anything like what the largest corporations have done?---parallel structures of government?

If so, mimicking aspects of that would probably require organization and resources on their level.

Personally, I can dig that angle and I do pursue it but I always keep, first and foremost, two contradictory facts in mind: 1) these folks have thrown God-like resources at this, but 2) they did so out of arrogance and dumb-itude and they have been proven wrong across the board since then.

Well, only half of it -- the "resources" part. Witnessing the Fed play havoc with "free market" prices and successfully apply Keynes through sheer volume makes me appreciate the fact the assets of the perpetual vulture state are probably vastly overstated.

Nobody is all that secure. I look forward to third generation Gordon Gecko types carving their Hamptons mansions from the very flesh of their mentors -- their mentors who lied to them and sold them out for chump change.

[lupercal]

New Senators get mentors. His was Liebermann. That right fucking there should have been the tell, but I dismissed that. There's a pattern now, nay, a damned rut of well worn actions.

Fine, it was a tell. So what does it tell us, from the perspective of eight years? Let's see, Lieberman was subsequently primaried out of the Dem party and now he and McCain are the Senate's most reliable drum beaters for the bomb-Iran lobby. From last month:

Lieberman: We’ll ‘Hope And Pray’ For Regime Change After Iran Attack
By Ben Armbruster on Aug 28, 2012 at 2:24 pm | ThinkProgress.org

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty this week that he thinks the chances are “high” that Iran will face military attack if the regime in Tehran doesn’t change course on its nuclear program.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/ ... ?mobile=nc

Obama on the other hand is heading into his second successful term as Dem president after effectively spending his first resisting pressure from said lobby, last week's pas-de-deux with Bibi rising to the level of bonafide international crisis. From 2009:

Obama: No green light for Israel to attack Iran
CNN | July 07, 2009


President Obama meets Tuesday with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin near Moscow.

The United States is "absolutely not" giving Israel a green light to attack Iran, U.S. President Barack Obama told CNN Tuesday.

"We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," Obama said, referring to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Obama has been in Moscow for a summit aimed at trying to reset the U.S.-Russian relationship.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-07/poli ... M:POLITICS

So what it tells us is that Lieberman has had no influence on Obama whatsoever. They're not even in the same party. So to haul it up as proof of Obama's perfidy is inane. Likewise the stuff in the OP is mostly half-baked, unsourced, stale-menudo leftovers from last year's tea party.

[JackRiddler]

Witnessing the Fed play havoc with "free market" prices and successfully apply Keynes through sheer volume

Imagine what could have been done if these volumes had been applied to anything other than rescuing the alpha predators and securing their hegemony, assuring that no good outcome will ever come from this system again?

This thread is hilarious. Now let's vote:

1) Elections are set up as a scam in which the same interests are served and the same policies are carried out regardless of who wins. How you vote is therefore not as significant as advertised. It's also not worth fighting over. Whether you vote or not, what you do the other 365 days and 22 hours on this leap year is of greater significance. You wanna vote, go ahead, but don't use voting as an excuse for not acting to change things the rest of the time.

2) Voters are complicit in war crimes! Grrrrrrr!!! If you vote you have committed BABY MURDER just as much as the drone bombers and you deserve the HELLFIRE you will get! So mad at Obama, who's worse than Bush!!! War criminal! Kicking the wall!!! I hate smug liberals!!! I will spend the next six weeks SCREAMING at EVERYONE for the horrific crime of MAKING ALL OF THE WORLD'S EVIL POSSIBLE BY VOTING!!! Lesser-evilism is the philosophy solely responsible for all present-day state of badness. If no one voted, EVERYTHING WOULD BE DIFFERENT!!! I AM PURE!!! I AM TRUE!!! I AM ENTITLED TO SNEER AT YOU! ME AND MY VOTER-HATING BUDS AM THE ONLY SMART ONES HERE!!! EVERYONE ELSE IS HYPNOTIZED!!! OBAMABOTS!@! GRRRRRRRRR!!! DIE!

I don't agree with either, obviously, but I've seen both represented here without the obvious distinction between them being made. So which of these two quasi-contradictory positions makes more sense as a non-voting philosophy?

[2012 Countdown]

Given these two as options, I'll 'vote' #1 of course. But any casual observer might have guessed as much.
Not a judger of the "voting" public for the act of voting. Judging on most other things, but not the act. If anything they do it out of desperation.

But yeah, kinda funny. Nevermind all the accusing going on (on both 'sides'), but by one person in particular who constantly does it. I especially enjoyed the revelation/analysis that 8bit is a covert teabagger. I could go into what i might find the deal is or find objectionable about some posts of his (8bits), but that isn't what I want to go on about, or the subject at hand. 8bit is a teabagger. Okay.

[semiconscious]

My Obiebot friends are good algebraists. They can understand equations. For example:

(10,000 / 10,000) * (1,000/1,000) * (100/100) * (10/10) ... * (0.0001/0.00001) = 10

See? Obama is ten times better than Romney!

For those whose eyes -- like mine -- tend to glaze over at sight of an equation, no matter how trivial, let me rephrase this a different way.

Lesser-evil reasoning consists essentially in discounting all the ways in which the candidates are indistinguishable, and focusing on whatever apparent or real differences there are. So the fact that (for example) they're both mass murderers, actual or aspiring, cancels out; it appears in both the numerator and denominator. Well, onto the next thing. They're both big advocates of the police state, and education 'reform', and Israel, and immiseration -- cancels out. But aha! One of them has kinder words for the uterus than the other! Well then, there's your 0.0001/0.00001 ! A tenfold difference! And since there are no other differences, well, there's your decision made for you. Register and vote, contribute and post enthusiastic dribble on your Facebook page. It's simple algebra.

As logic goes, this is flawless. It only becomes absurd at a certain level of scale. If Ted Bundy were the Demolican candidate, and John Wayne Gacy the Republicrat... Well, a Gacy administration would certainly be better for women. But at that point, most people would throw up their hands and say 'who gives a shit?'

Please note however that even in the Gacy/Bundy case, the lesser-evil logic is still ironclad and irrefutable. There's always a lesser evil, and with instruments of sufficient refinement, capable of measuring out to enough decimal places, you can always find it.

So the interesting question for me is this: at what point in the process do people stop doing nano-arithmetic? How many decimal places is too many?

I am of course quite encouraged by the fact that for a substantial number of Americans, this point was reached a long time ago. I wonder why so few of my friends are among their number, however.

http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/09/the_microscopic_eye.html

very well done ...

[JackRiddler]

My Obiebot friends are good algebraists. They can understand equations. For example:

(10,000 / 10,000) * (1,000/1,000) * (100/100) * (10/10) ... * (0.0001/0.00001) = 10

See? Obama is ten times better than Romney!

How to use metaphor, unattached to anything real, to avoid discussion of things that are not as clear-cut. Also, insults & projection.

[compared2what?]

I'm not sure that's a metaphor. But maybe it is.

Yrs.

The Figure of Speech Police

_______________

^^I mean, is that? I wouldn't have said so.

[Nordic]

Witnessing the Fed play havoc with "free market" prices and successfully apply Keynes through sheer volume

Imagine what could have been done if these volumes had been applied to anything other than rescuing the alpha predators and securing their hegemony, assuring that no good outcome will ever come from this system again?

This thread is hilarious. Now let's vote:

1) Elections are set up as a scam in which the same interests are served and the same policies are carried out regardless of who wins. How you vote is therefore not as significant as advertised. It's also not worth fighting over. Whether you vote or not, what you do the other 365 days and 22 hours on this leap year is of greater significance. You wanna vote, go ahead, but don't use voting as an excuse for not acting to change things the rest of the time.

2) Voters are complicit in war crimes! Grrrrrrr!!! If you vote you have committed BABY MURDER just as much as the drone bombers and you deserve the HELLFIRE you will get! So mad at Obama, who's worse than Bush!!! War criminal! Kicking the wall!!! I hate smug liberals!!! I will spend the next six weeks SCREAMING at EVERYONE for the horrific crime of MAKING ALL OF THE WORLD'S EVIL POSSIBLE BY VOTING!!! Lesser-evilism is the philosophy solely responsible for all present-day state of badness. If no one voted, EVERYTHING WOULD BE DIFFERENT!!! I AM PURE!!! I AM TRUE!!! I AM ENTITLED TO SNEER AT YOU! ME AND MY VOTER-HATING BUDS AM THE ONLY SMART ONES HERE!!! EVERYONE ELSE IS HYPNOTIZED!!! OBAMABOTS!@! GRRRRRRRRR!!! DIE!

I don't agree with either, obviously, but I've seen both represented here without the obvious distinction between them being made. So which of these two quasi-contradictory positions makes more sense as a non-voting philosophy?

Uh, clearly closer to number 1 for me. If i have ended up sounding like number 2 (hm, sounding like poop?), then we're not communicating (and which i will take at least partial responsibity for).

Your vote means nothing. But if you want to go vote, fine. If you think that by voting you are actually spending your political capital, you are not. Whatever political power you have is NOT used at the voting booth. In fact the voting booth robs you of your political power.

[Wombaticus Rex]

In fact the voting booth robs you of your political power.

sure buddy

[Phil]

The subject of rigged/hackable voting machines seems to have gone a bit quiet? That all resolved now?

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-lab-s ... 74900.html

If they are rigged/hacked then all this talk of the lesser evil is a bit moot.

[vince]

The subject of rigged/hackable voting machines seems to have gone a bit quiet? That all resolved now?

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-lab-s ... 74900.html

If they are rigged/hacked then all this talk of the lesser evil is a bit moot.

If there are still DieBolt voting booths around...... and, I think there are.





--------------------------------------------
"The Enigma Of David's Toe" by Vincent Cannata
http://www.amazon.com/The-Enigma-Dav...d_rhf_gw_p_t_2

"A wild ride of conspiracy theories, reincarnation, and occult weirdness..... you know, a comedy."

[JackRiddler]

I'm not sure that's a metaphor. But maybe it is.

Yrs.

The Figure of Speech Police

_______________

^^I mean, is that? I wouldn't have said so.

I don't see why a mathematical formula can't be used as a metaphor. Or call it what you will. Point is, instead of arguing from the empirical - Romney is for this, Obama is for that too, they differ on the other thing - a comparison is made to a wholly abstract model, which is then substituted for the actual thing. Particularly misleading in the attempt to use "numbers." Who says the difference is .00001? (Oh, and that single identified difference happens to correspond to the trivial matter of how one speaks about "the uterus." Women, I tell you, they always gotta be in the middle of things.) To pretend these things are quantifiable as precise numbers is mildly absurd, to extend that over several paragraphs as though it applies is wholly and pedantically absurd.

[JackRiddler]

Uh, clearly closer to number 1 for me. If i have ended up sounding like number 2 (hm, sounding like poop?), then we're not communicating (and which i will take at least partial responsibity for).

Number 2 is modeled on your rhetoric in this thread. I wouldn't even say I'm exaggerating - just compressing.

If it's Number 1, then this discussion should find a resolution. But it never does.

[Belligerent Savant]

Uh, clearly closer to number 1 for me. If i have ended up sounding like number 2 (hm, sounding like poop?), then we're not communicating (and which i will take at least partial responsibity for).

Your vote means nothing. But if you want to go vote, fine. If you think that by voting you are actually spending your political capital, you are not. Whatever political power you have is NOT used at the voting booth. In fact the voting booth robs you of your political power.

What he said ^^^^

[Belligerent Savant]

If it's Number 1, then this discussion should find a resolution. But it never does.

Resolution -- such as what?

There may be resolutions at more local levels, but what resolution is there on the national level?

Not voting? Revolt? [or rather, a truly authentic revolt not staged or eventually infiltrated COINTELPRO-style, which would be impossible in this current setup].

Neither option will remove the power structures currently in place [they may perhaps provide a temporary appearance of 'resolution', but long-term we'd return to status-quo.], nor will either option remove the tendency for certain humans to simply place GREED/desire for power above all else.

Or perhaps I'm being too macro about this.

Regardless, there is no current resolution -- short of a sudden evolution of the human mind beyond its current ego-based limitations.