When you say that Obama "smells different" I guess I can understand that, although the man is certainly not getting anywhere near your nose or mine without his handlers shpritzing him with eau de difference.
Saying that you wouldn't be embarrassed to have him as a Preznit is also something I can understand. I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking to Europeans with Obama in the White House than I would with, say, McCain. Enjoying the good will of other nations again would be a nice thing... but personally, I feel that choosing a candidate according to how well he'll play in the sticks is terribly irresponsible at a time when the nation is in serious crisis on so many fronts. Putting a new face on the same old shit just isn't going to cut it much longer, and the whole world is at stake.
You really disappoint me with that crack about "delusional extremist whack-jobs". The establishment criminals and their spinmeister friends at Fox and CNN put a lot of effort into dismissing any prominent candidate who challenges the status quo as a kook (and keeping any who aren't prominent from becoming so). It seems that wanting to actually change anything qualifies as 'delusional', and being a non-Democrat non-Republican automatically makes you an 'extremist'. The very idea of a third Party is scoffed and laughed at in America... and yet the idea of only having two Parties is scoffed and laughed at in much of the rest of the free world.
My traditionally Democrat-voting friends seem to buy into this thinking very easily (I don't have enough traditionally Republican-voting friends to form an opinion on them). What I really wonder is: do you think that expecting some huge change as the result of continuing with corporate hegemony, an absolutely ruinous foreign policy, an illegal war, and a consequence-free environment for the administration who deceived us is something other than delusional?
Presidents are not kings, and anyone who did hypothetically make it to the White House with real change in mind would have a hell of an uphill pull waiting for him, so I can live with a candidate I don't totally agree with. What I can't live with is a candidate who lies constantly, and does everything according to who paid and how much.
I trust Nader to have his heart in the right place, but he's got no experience in politics except as an outsider. I'd still vote for him as a way of sending a message to the Democrats that the natives are getting restless for some real change, but I'd see him as an unknown quantity if he did happen to win by some miracle.
In the primaries, I voted for Ron Paul. I don't agree with everything he wants to do, but I've looked at his 20-year voting record and seen the outward manifestations of his integrity, and I trust him a million percent more than I could possibly trust any of the frontrunners. I trust him to say what he thinks, to keep the corporate teat out of his mouth, and to uphold the Constitution... and a man who can be trusted to say what he thinks can be argued and reasoned with if you disagree with him, while one who lies all the time can't be argued with at all. And hey, call me old-fashioned, but I still think the Constitution should be something more than a quaint old piece of dead dusty history locked up in a museum.
Yes, I've heard the smears about Ron Paul's supposed ties with militia extremists, and about the racist material that appeared in his newsletter while he was out of politics and busy being a doctor delivering babies. I've also seen those smears debunked pretty well, and I've heard the President of the Austin, Texas chapter of the NAACP say that he's known Paul personally for over 20 years and doesn't believe he's a racist. I trust an NAACP President to sniff out racists a lot more than I trust Fox News to do it.
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Saying that you wouldn't be embarrassed to have him as a Preznit is also something I can understand. I'd feel a lot more comfortable talking to Europeans with Obama in the White House than I would with, say, McCain. Enjoying the good will of other nations again would be a nice thing... but personally, I feel that choosing a candidate according to how well he'll play in the sticks is terribly irresponsible at a time when the nation is in serious crisis on so many fronts. Putting a new face on the same old shit just isn't going to cut it much longer, and the whole world is at stake.
You really disappoint me with that crack about "delusional extremist whack-jobs". The establishment criminals and their spinmeister friends at Fox and CNN put a lot of effort into dismissing any prominent candidate who challenges the status quo as a kook (and keeping any who aren't prominent from becoming so). It seems that wanting to actually change anything qualifies as 'delusional', and being a non-Democrat non-Republican automatically makes you an 'extremist'. The very idea of a third Party is scoffed and laughed at in America... and yet the idea of only having two Parties is scoffed and laughed at in much of the rest of the free world.
My traditionally Democrat-voting friends seem to buy into this thinking very easily (I don't have enough traditionally Republican-voting friends to form an opinion on them). What I really wonder is: do you think that expecting some huge change as the result of continuing with corporate hegemony, an absolutely ruinous foreign policy, an illegal war, and a consequence-free environment for the administration who deceived us is something other than delusional?
Presidents are not kings, and anyone who did hypothetically make it to the White House with real change in mind would have a hell of an uphill pull waiting for him, so I can live with a candidate I don't totally agree with. What I can't live with is a candidate who lies constantly, and does everything according to who paid and how much.
I trust Nader to have his heart in the right place, but he's got no experience in politics except as an outsider. I'd still vote for him as a way of sending a message to the Democrats that the natives are getting restless for some real change, but I'd see him as an unknown quantity if he did happen to win by some miracle.
In the primaries, I voted for Ron Paul. I don't agree with everything he wants to do, but I've looked at his 20-year voting record and seen the outward manifestations of his integrity, and I trust him a million percent more than I could possibly trust any of the frontrunners. I trust him to say what he thinks, to keep the corporate teat out of his mouth, and to uphold the Constitution... and a man who can be trusted to say what he thinks can be argued and reasoned with if you disagree with him, while one who lies all the time can't be argued with at all. And hey, call me old-fashioned, but I still think the Constitution should be something more than a quaint old piece of dead dusty history locked up in a museum.
Yes, I've heard the smears about Ron Paul's supposed ties with militia extremists, and about the racist material that appeared in his newsletter while he was out of politics and busy being a doctor delivering babies. I've also seen those smears debunked pretty well, and I've heard the President of the Austin, Texas chapter of the NAACP say that he's known Paul personally for over 20 years and doesn't believe he's a racist. I trust an NAACP President to sniff out racists a lot more than I trust Fox News to do it.