SecondEdition wrote:Mino - your point about Giulani being a social liberal is correct. Which is a reason why I wouldn't be totally gutted if he won. I'd still be gutted, but I'd at least feel like someone with a brain was being elected instead of a religious protofascist with a lower functioning IQ than that of a rotten avocado.

giulani winning would be disaster. his speeches are totally religious protofascism, and he was a social liberal in certain regards in nyc but he HAD to be -- the whole of the country is very different and who knows how nasty he'd get.

The argument 'There is no way they are ever going to elect X' has been rendered invalid by two terms of Bush.

SecondEdition wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote:
Giuliani is a social liberal. This does NOT play well with the Republican base. This "the Democrats will cause another 9/11" talk has been done before...Bush, Cheney. Americans have largely wised up to such bullshit. Remember what Germ War was saying about the short American attention span? 9/11 was practically 6 years ago now...that's like 100 years in America.

Mino - your point about Giulani being a social liberal is correct. Which is a reason why I wouldn't be totally gutted if he won. I'd still be gutted, but I'd at least feel like someone with a brain was being elected instead of a religious protofascist with a lower functioning IQ than that of a rotten avocado.

He might be a social "liberal" in certain ways - doesn't want to round up gay people and set them on fire, is chill with abortion - but he is not anything I'd like to attach the tag of liberal to. His homeless policies, his police policies, his support for waterboarding etc., his support of domestic surveillance, his support for the suspension of the writ of habeus corpus, opposition to nationalized health care... basically, if his society would be liberal, I do not want to be a part of that society.

We're in the run-up to an election where the big social issues aren't whether or not abortion is legal, but rather whether the Constitution will continue to exist as a meaningful document or give way as we slide towards a totalitarian executive. Rudy Emergency-Term-Extension Guiliani might not be a fundamentalist, but he remains as cryptofascist as the rest.

Giuliani wrote:We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. You have free speech so I can be heard.

Fuck. That. Noise.

Antero wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote:
Giuliani is a social liberal. This does NOT play well with the Republican base. This "the Democrats will cause another 9/11" talk has been done before...Bush, Cheney. Americans have largely wised up to such bullshit. Remember what Germ War was saying about the short American attention span? 9/11 was practically 6 years ago now...that's like 100 years in America.

Mino - your point about Giulani being a social liberal is correct. Which is a reason why I wouldn't be totally gutted if he won. I'd still be gutted, but I'd at least feel like someone with a brain was being elected instead of a religious protofascist with a lower functioning IQ than that of a rotten avocado.

He might be a social "liberal" in certain ways - doesn't want to round up gay people and set them on fire, is chill with abortion - but he is not anything I'd like to attach the tag of liberal to. His homeless policies, his police policies, his support for waterboarding etc., his support of domestic surveillance, his support for the suspension of the writ of habeus corpus, opposition to nationalized health care... basically, if his society would be liberal, I do not want to be a part of that society.

We're in the run-up to an election where the big social issues aren't whether or not abortion is legal, but rather whether the Constitution will continue to exist as a meaningful document or give way as we slide towards a totalitarian executive. Rudy Emergency-Term-Extension Guiliani might not be a fundamentalist, but he remains as cryptofascist as the rest.

Giuliani wrote:We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. You have free speech so I can be heard.

Fuck. That. Noise.

Okay, maybe I need to do a little more reading...

sunset_gun wrote:Yeah. From what I understand, Clinton had little if anything to personally do with the economic growth in the 90's. He benefited by being in the right place at the right time.

I heard Clinton speaking on MPR a couple weeks ago and he basically said just as much. He credited much of the economic boom of the 90's on (dun-dun-DUN) the Internet.

tommydski wrote:The argument 'There is no way they are ever going to elect X' has been rendered invalid by two terms of Bush.

I would go see a porno called "Two Terms of Bush".

SecondEdition wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote:
Giuliani is a social liberal. This does NOT play well with the Republican base. This "the Democrats will cause another 9/11" talk has been done before...Bush, Cheney. Americans have largely wised up to such bullshit. Remember what Germ War was saying about the short American attention span? 9/11 was practically 6 years ago now...that's like 100 years in America.

Mino - your point about Giulani being a social liberal is correct. Which is a reason why I wouldn't be totally gutted if he won. I'd still be gutted, but I'd at least feel like someone with a brain was being elected instead of a religious protofascist with a lower functioning IQ than that of a rotten avocado.

Giuliani is to be feared like Bush should be feared. Romney too. Romney favors the EXPANSION of Guantanamo. Giuliani is still playing the "Democrats will cause 9/11...AGAIN!! The Muslims WANT TO KILL YOUR BABIES" card. They are more of the same fear-mongering despots. Luckily, McCain appears to be fucked...but it's possible that he could come back (sincerely doubt it...but he's the establishment candidate...the "machine" candidate).

Maiolo wrote:Yeah, it sure would suck to relive the greatest economic expansion in our history, low unemployment, an expanding middle class, government programs that work, good feelings, a surplus, rather than the largest deficit we've ever seen, accrued in the shortest period of time, and the biggest national scandal being the President having been fellated by a chubby, strange woman.

I don't know how I could get out of bed in the morning if we got another Bill Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is NOT Bill Clinton. Another Clinton would be a bad thing for this country. Power is too fucking consolidated. They have too much experience as politicians and leaders of the "free world"...ducking questions..."knowing" all the answers...H-dawg will just end up sharing many Bush-like traits. She would certainly be preferable to Bush...but I have extreme misgivings about what would almost certainly become a 28 year Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton dynasty (lets not forget that Jeb and George P. are waiting in the wings, either). We need a leader with a little more openness. I guess that Al Gore has experience in the White House, but I think he would be different (I think the guy has some convictions). Edwards and Obama also would represent change. We need a leader with a little less "experience" despite the fact that it's gonna take a real fucking leader to get us off the "end of empire" track that Bush has set us on.

Tommy, sorry...but you really don't understand American politics. In a sick, twisted way...Bush's two elections make sense (even if the second election was legitimate). If the evangelicals can get behind somebody...watch out. Karl Rove predicted perfectly the amount of votes that were missing in 2000 after the Gore camp leaked Bush's DUI two days before the election. Gore won by: 550,000 popular votes in 2000. Evangelicals that Rove said were missing in 2000?: 4 million. In 2004...Bush won by: 3.5 million votes. Get the picture?

Mormons are laughed at (Romney). Gays are hated (Giuliani). Thompson is a lightweight, McCain somehow got fucked (serves him right for being such a little bitch in the guise of NOT being a bitch for so many years). The evangelicals have no one to truly rally around. No one is there that really "believes" in his faith like Bush. Sick stuff, eh?

Minotaur029 wrote:McCain somehow got fucked (serves him right for being such a little bitch in the guise of NOT being a bitch for so many years).

I had much respect for McCain until after the 2000 election. I don't think it can be understated how the thrashing he got at the hands of the Bush campaign completely emasculated him and turned him into Dubya's lapdog. I wouldn't be surprised if Bush's signing of McCain-Feingold was a bone that was thrown McCain's way as a "reward" for curling up and collapsing under the Rove "There are reports that McCain fathered a black baby. What do you think about that?" push-polls.

McCain used to be presidential material. Now he's just a hapless toady. I feel bad for him, but at the same time, he's made his bed.

DrAwkward wrote:

Minotaur029 wrote:McCain somehow got fucked (serves him right for being such a little bitch in the guise of NOT being a bitch for so many years).

I had much respect for McCain until after the 2000 election. I don't think it can be understated how the thrashing he got at the hands of the Bush campaign completely emasculated him and turned him into Dubya's lapdog. I wouldn't be surprised if Bush's signing of McCain-Feingold was a bone that was thrown McCain's way as a "reward" for curling up and collapsing under the Rove "There are reports that McCain fathered a black baby. What do you think about that?" push-polls.

McCain used to be presidential material. Now he's just a hapless toady. I feel bad for him, but at the same time, he's made his bed.

Agreed...but it's clear to me now that he was a pandering asshole for way farther back than was apparent in 2000. He thought that sucking up to Bush would eventually make him president. Fuck you, John McCain...you deserve this embarassing collapse.

That black baby stuff was certainly sick, wasn't it? That's why a candidate that the "machine" is prepping for the presidency (Hillary) is a totally appalling prospect for me. No one was gonna get in the way of Bush's campaign...even a superior insurgent campaign such as McCain's in 2000. I mean the guy can actually speak. That's a huge leg up on somebody like Bush.

Minotaur029 wrote:
Giuliani is a social liberal. This does NOT play well with the Republican base. This "the Democrats will cause another 9/11" talk has been done before...Bush, Cheney. Americans have largely wised up to such bullshit. Remember what Germ War was saying about the short American attention span? 9/11 was practically 6 years ago now...that's like 100 years in America.

Social liberal my ass. I don't know what political perspective you're viewing from, but in my book Giuliani is an asshole, pure and simple. Though he may be opposed to banning abortion, during his first and second terms as NYC mayor, he often made headlines with proposals and promises to do things like ban methadone clinics within the NYC limits and cut impoverished mothers' public aid benefits if they fail to look for work within mere weeks of having a baby.

He's an arrogant prick and considering the idiocy of the average American, he'll probably end up being our next president just because of distinction that he happened to be mayor of NY during 9/11.

Fuck Giuliani. If he gets elected president I am definitely going to expatriate myself from this backwards country.