5/29 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A689-2004May29.html
This article was up the other day. I'm not sure why it got
squished, except that it was somewhat informative. Anyway, Kerry
makes a few good points, but his understanding of North Korea
seems glaringly bad. -jrleek
\_ Kerry has 20 years in the Senate on the Foreign Relations
Committee. GWB is a draft dodging crack head. JFK will save
us all from the quagmire in Iraq that shrub created and will
restore American credibility around the world for generations
to come! If only he had some real passion like Dean or was a
decent human being non-partisans could vote for like Edwards,
he would stand a good chance.
he would stand a good chance in November. I'm voting for Nader
since Kerry is just more of the same. His Iraq plan is "do more
of what GWB is doing, do it with more troops and try to get our
EU and UN allies in there to spread the death around".
\_ Have you heard any of Kerry's speeches? He has passion.
He just has very little press coverage. If he picks Wes
Clark as his running mate, they'll have 8 years.
\_ He has fake passion. He "speechifies". He doesn't give
speeches. Artificial pauses and talking loudly an octave
lower than your regular voice is not passion. Clark brings
nothing to the ticket. They both have military experience.
They both have foreign policy/diplomacy experience. What
do you think Clark brings to the ticket? He's from the
South? So are others. The only reason to put Clark on the
ticket is if Kerry's military background isn't doing it
for him. Putting Clark on there would be an admission of
weakness in an area Kerry claims is his strength. I think
Kerry and his advisors are smarter than that.
\_ If you really believe that Kerry is the same as Bush, you
really owe it to yourself to read the man's speeches and
get to know his policy ideas. I think you'll find that
the differences are stark.
\_ I seen a few and read a few. The differences are minimal.
My example above was policy in Iraq. The only difference
is that Kerry wants to put more troops in. The NYT did a
write up on this a few days ago and went point by point.
There's very little difference. It's just a matter of
degree. The basic policies are the same.
\_ Me too... Go nader!
\_ I'm with you, brother! Don't let them get you to vote for
a lesser man with that stuff about Nader "stealing" votes
from Kerry or Gore. He has the same right to run as any
US born citizen, of age, etc, as per the Constitution. When
the Democrats remember that power is not their right, they
might get my vote again. There *are* other options for
people with principles.
\_ Damn straight, America! Vote your conscience, America!
Especially when it draws votes away from the one man
who can end the Bush nightmare.
This message brought to you by Americans for a New
Century.
\_ Again, you fail to understand. We don't see your guy
as any different than the other guy. We want *our*
guy in office. Why is that so hard to understand? I
already understand why you find it hard to accept. Your
party doesn't have a right to power. I don't want your
guy in any more than I want the other guy. *Both* are
nightmares to me and people like me. It will always
be so until you get a real candidate or we get a real
multi party system in this country. My vote is *not*
being drawn away from your guy. You *never* had it.
\_ What is it you like about Nader? Is Larry Elder
also ok?
\_ For starters, Nader isn't a lying two bit sack
of career politician scum like the others. He
has a track record of making good things happen
for the people, not just talking about it until
after the next election cycle. I like what he
says, he says what he means, and he means to do
good for all of us. What else is there to like
about any office holder?
\_ I'm not a Democrat. I don't believe in the Dems.
I'm pro-choice, pro-Death Penalty reform, anti-
huge deficits and trickle-down economics, pro-
campaign finance reform, pro-globalization, pro-
Science, and pro-Bill of Rights. I think the current
Administration is against everything I believe in,
and I know that the only candidate who stands a
chance in hell of reversing the course of the
current Administration is John Kerry. That's why
I'm voting for him. If I thought Ralph had a chance,
I'd vote for him. He doesn't, under the current
system, so I won't.
\_ As long as people like you continue to make it
that way it will be that way. You know this
country didn't start out with parties? You know
the parties we have now are not the first parties
the country has had? Parties are not eternal.
If you don't like the candidate(s) from one or
more of the parties you have the duty and
obligation to yourself and your country to vote
for the best candidate, not make a game out of
it. Game makers have killed the electoral
process. There is nothing wrong with the process
as it stands now except the people voting in it.
\_ This is starting to remind me of the perennial write-in
candidate for the CSUA presidency, !psb.
"Vote John F. !GWB. End the nightmare and save
America!" -- ilyas
\_ Like it or not, we live in a system where the person
who gets the most electoral votes in a single
election wins all. If you have three candidates,
and two of the candidates have more in common with
each other than with the third, and yet you split
the like-minded vote evenly between them, you're
reducing the probability that either of those two
candidates will defeat the third candidate. If you
don't like the system, reform the system, and then
vote for the candidate you truly support with a
clear conscience. If you vote for Nader without
reforming the system first, you're simply drawing
votes away from Kerry's chances of defeating Bush.
If you're going to game the system, have the good
sense to make sure the rules support your attempt
to game it. Anything else is simply petulancy.
\_ You *still* don't get it. Your guy is *nothing*
like my guy and *everything* like that other guy
already in office as far as I'm concerned. If
my guy wasn't running I would stay home, I would
not be voting for your guy. Your guy is useless.
You keep talking about how voting for Nader is
drawing votes away from Kerry which reduces the
odds of defeating Bush. I don't care which of
Bush or Kerry wins. They are the same to me. If
Nader doesn't win, Bush might as well win as far
I'm concerned. It doesn't matter at that point.
Not all of us share your obsession with
defeating Bush. Your party uses all it's
constituents like that and rules them with fear.
"I know we did nothing for you since the last
time you supported us and the many times before
that but think how much worse it'll be under the
other party!" Enough! Give me my country back!
\_ I really hope you do an in-depth analysis of
Kerry and Bush before you make your final
decision on their similarity. In the mean-
time, as I wrote above, you really need to
get either Instant Run-off elections or the
Parliamentary system set up here if you want
a Green vote to be worth anything.
\_ Bush: scum. Kerry: scum. We don't need a
new system. We need new candidates and
voters willing to vote for them. We have
the right people running. Now we just
need new voters who don't see the
process as some sort of game that needs
to be cynically won.
\_ I would recommend all CA libertarians to vote
Nader. Why? Bush will not carry the state as
things stand. Therefore, a vote for Nader is
actually more useful than a vote for Bush, since
it will encourage Nader to run again, and splinter
the socialist camp. Once that's done, I would
probably advocate voting for Buchanan, or whatever,
to similarly splinter the non-libertarian Right.
-- ilyas
\_ And you believe libertarians would want to vote
for Bush because...?
\_ A libertarian may do a number of things,
some of them counterintuitive. I think
most libertarians, if they choose to vote
for a major party, will generally take
a republican over a democrat. In some
sense, that's the fault of the democrats.
-- ilyas
\_ In terms of the game, I agree with you.
\_ It isn't a game.
\_ Edwards a decent human being? Yeah, right. He's a trial
attorney. I've scraped better things off the bottom of my shoe.
He made his millions convincing juries that doctors were at fault
for children being born with cerebral palsy. He later admitted
that he knew that doctors can't cause CP.
\_ Nonsense. He made money giving people fucked up by bad
doctors a chance to put those incompetents out of business
and get enough money from their insurance to have a chance
at a semi-normal life. He serves the little guy, not evil
corporations, criminals, and other scum. I'd take Edwards
over that piece of plastic the Democrats have now any day.
\__\_ Link? EITHER OF YOU?
\_ Edward's legal battles are a matter of public record.
Google and you'll find plenty.
\_ "n 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John
\_ "In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John
Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of
an unborn baby girl." From the nytimes:
http://csua.org/u/7im
\_ Nicely taken out of context of both the article
and more importantly, the trial.
\_ Out of context?!? It's the first line of the
article!
\_ I'm curious: who are you planning to vote for, Jim? --darin
\_ I haven't descided yet. GWB does a few things that I think,
are imortant, well. He does most other things REALLY badly.
On the other hand, he's honest about what he wants, which
is nice. I haven't read much of Kerry's stuff yet, but at
least he says here that he's not planning to pull out of
Iraq. Which is good because that would be really stupid.
If Kerry promises the rest of the stuff I think is
important, I may well vote for him. On the other hand, for
a self described expert on foriegn policy, that little
paragraph about NK (which is also quite important to me)
looks really stupid and naive. I'll wait for the debates I
guess. What about you? -jrleek PS. Oh yeah, I'm nervous
about ANYONE NK endorses for President. On the ohter hand,
if he plays his cards right, that could mean he might be
able to do some good with them.
\_ I've been in favor of getting Bush out of office since reading
'Scientific Integrity in Policymaking' see
http://soda/~darin/sip.pdf for details.
\_ The problem with voting against someone is the last time we
did that, we got...Jimmy Carter. Whee.
\_ Nader > Clinton > Sharpton > Gore > Dean > Edwards > Kerry > McCain
> Bush > Buchanan. But I'm voting for Kerry because the ppl above
him in the chain either aren't running or don't stand a chance.
\_ Sharpton? Who? Buchanan? What? Why are these two even on
the list? I'd vote for my dog first. At least he's cute. |
http://csua.com/feed/