clocker bob wrote:

kenoki wrote:So then what is the point of voting at all? Fuck it!

NO! You take what the system gives you. You'll never get anything more ( you'll almost certainly get less ) if you don't participate. If we vote in one progressive president, followed by another, followed by another, we build political capital. I make these dire warnings about what will happen to America if people do tune out and stop voting- then it's guaranteed. What has been taken from us can be taken back. Rome fell. Nobody thought it would in Claudius' time, either.

Bob, what about the shifting on the population's ethnicity landscape?. Has any other empire experience the same? Do you think that this would make any difference on the demise or salvation of this empire.

This is something that is rarely mentioned within a positive context when the imminent fall of the empire is discussed. Isn't it possible that the extraction of power from the future extinct majority will change anything?

jcamanei wrote:Bob, what about the shifting on the population's ethnicity landscape?.

If you're suggesting that the less white we become as a nation, the less manageable we become, I can see your point a little, because it's easier to herd similar cows all together. Perhaps a big Hispanic bloc could run a candidate who would be a threat to the axis of old white guy power.
I'll have to think about it more. For me, the problem is what happens to people's minds when they become Americans, whatever their ethnicity. The Americanized mind of any ethnic group is stereotypically a droned out whore to consumerism and cheeseball pop culture and easy solutions.

We have it both bad and easy in this country, if that makes sense. We have it easy because, as they're stealing our sovereignty from beneath our feet, we all drive cars and have High Def and supermarkets and malls stuffed to the gills with every creature comfort. And we have it bad, because this lulls us to sleep. The economy works just well enough for nearly everyone who tries at all that the kind of poverty-driven anger that causes uprisings never spreads beyond small pockets of the country.

I think there is another severe depression in our country's future. If country-wide despair across the middle and lower classes sets in, that could be a combustible energy, if it could be harnessed, but it won't be. We'll just blame the wrong people and fight ourselves and when the New World Order finishes stripping us of our land and property again when we can't pay our debts, we'll end up buying it all back on credit again.

Fuck.

I've had it with the Democrats. They straight out lied about Iraq to get elected in the midterms, and now they continually vote to fund the war.

I don't know why I am surprised. I know all too well a politicians job is to get elected and lies are a big part of it. I didn't vote, but I figured if they did actually end the war, maybe there is something to this notion that the Democrats are leftists.

But they are not. Let's face it, Clinton was Walmarts best buddy with those "free trade" deals that let Chinese goods flood our markets, but we can't sell them jack squat. They pirate our media and don't buy our products, yet we are flooded with their crap. The great Clinton line is "The era of big government is over". Yes, let's dismantle everything FDR built, making you a Republican with a Democrat affiliation...

Obama says great things, but again, do you really believe he will deliver?

Hillary is just hillararious. I love that speech when she said she will stop global warming, provide universal health care, end the genocide in Darfur, and end the war in Iraq... You know, the same war she voted for and continually votes to fund.

Oh, these Democrats are just such liars. Very few of them are actually decent and represent the left. Ted Kennedy isn't too bad, and he has introduced actual legislation for health care, but the Democrats and Republicans vote against it. He will go on the record that very few Democrats are actually liberals or leftists.

I don't like Republicans, but they are at least slightly more honest than Democrats. That speech when Hillary announced her candidacy was just too much for me... It was so full of lies and false promises, it didn't even make me mad. I just started laughing my arse off...

Ultimately...I think we should rally around Obama if he has a chance of stopping Hillary...aren't we the types to try to give something new a chance (even if the promises turn out to be the usual empty variety?)...but the tendency among the clocker bobs...the independent minded of this world...is to sometimes think too independently for our own good. Look at Ralph Nader. If he had never been born, would Bush be president right now?

We think for ourselves...therefore we rally around our own candidates...Richardson, Biden, Kucinich...types that are fucked outright...Howard Dean may have capitalized on the newness of the Internet, we won't be seeing his likes soon again.

In Bush and Clinton, we're making a sort of neo-Roman dynasty. Eventually it will seem frightening to give up power to anyone NOT in their lineage. We're starting to deal in kings and queens. Even I think (but loathe to admit) that it would be a great idea to essentially give Bill Clinton his job back.

Obama seems to be the only one with a snowball's chance in hell of breaking the dynasty. McCain is a fuck, I don't know if Giuliani can get through the Republican primaries...Edwards is a prick, Kucinich and the like are painted as crazies. Hillary is the right's version of Bush--the ultimate nightmare. Why would we want to continue polarizing the country for what would certainly be another 8 years?

clocker bob wrote:If you're suggesting that the less white we become as a nation, the less manageable we become, I can see your point a little, because it's easier to herd similar cows all together. Perhaps a big Hispanic bloc could run a candidate who would be a threat to the axis of old white guy power.

I'm sure there would be some serious, individual struggles within the 'Cabal Occultus', but I honestly feel that:

1. The political veneer of staffing in public office simply adapts to whatever aesthetic scales the populace is willing to tolerate.

2. Race-based, culturally-based, gender-based, etc. subcategories really don't matter when the prize of financial power is at stake. The ways we have of lying to ourselves and each other in order to justify questionable monetary gains are pretty comprehensive. The mask of public office will be donned, and the actual human behind the mask may or may not make .03% of a difference here and there, but...well, I don't think the plan will change very much.

Minotaur029 wrote: Look at Ralph Nader. If he had never been born, would Bush be president right now?

I still say this is unfair slander against Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader had every right to run until the end in 2000. Third party candidates do not owe it to the fake left wing half of the ruling Corporate Party to hand their votes over. It is unfair to say we must imagine a race without Nader to imagine a Gore victory in Florida. The fact remains that Al Gore won more votes in Florida than Bush. He did not need Nader's votes to win the state. Gore won it, and the stopped recount by the Supreme Court stole it.

Like I said in the Kerry thread, the Gore defeat and the Kerry defeat are good for the long term future of the Democratic party, because if you are a major party and you are terrified of nominating a real democrat because you'll lose your corporate funding, then you have outlived your usefulness as an alternative party. We need more Ralph Naders to embarrass the shameful nominees of the Democratic party.

rayj wrote:2. Race-based, culturally-based, gender-based, etc. subcategories really don't matter when the prize of financial power is at stake.

That's pretty much my thinking; the closer they get to the trough, everybody turns into a pig, black white or brown.

clocker bob wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote: Look at Ralph Nader. If he had never been born, would Bush be president right now?

I still say this is unfair slander against Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader had every right to run until the end in 2000. Third party candidates do not owe it to the fake left wing half of the ruling Corporate Party to hand their votes over. It is unfair to say we must imagine a race without Nader to imagine a Gore victory in Florida. The fact remains that Al Gore won more votes in Florida than Bush. He did not need Nader's votes to win the state. Gore won it, and the stopped recount by the Supreme Court stole it.

Like I said in the Kerry thread, the Gore defeat and the Kerry defeat are good for the long term future of the Democratic party, because if you are a major party and you are terrified of nominating a real democrat because you'll lose your corporate funding, then you have outlived your usefulness as an alternative party. We need more Ralph Naders to embarrass the shameful nominees of the Democratic party.

If Ralphie boy was actually granted access to the media in a fair and balanced campaign, well, things would most likely be very different indeed.

rayj wrote:If Ralphie boy was actually granted access to the media in a fair and balanced campaign, well, things would most likely be very different indeed.

Ironically, Ralphie boy killed the Corvair! A car that had environmental and economically friendly features, which if they had continued to develop, would probably have had a great impact on the cars we drive today and the way they affect both our wallet and our environment.

The NHTSA later conducted tests on the specific models of Corvair cited by Nader which proved showed that Nader's accusations were speculation and not factual dangers. However, these tests were conducted after sales of the Corvair had fallen to almost nil and GM had discontinued the line.

Way to go Ralphie Boy...

yut wrote:I've had it with the Democrats. They straight out lied about Iraq to get elected in the midterms, and now they continually vote to fund the war.

It is worse when the Dems bow down to the war machine. The Republicans don't lie to you first.

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) - House of Representatives Democrats will more than fully fund President George W. Bush's request for money to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year, but they are still debating conditions that could be attached, senior members of the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday.

Ohh, but look- they're debating conditions! Maybe if they ask really nicely, they can get Bush to spend some of those billions on proper body armor.

yut wrote:I don't like Republicans, but they are at least slightly more honest than Democrats.

Yes. Worse in policy, better at honesty most of the time, and I mean that. The actions of the Right more closely match their words.