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JadoreBaikonur
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 30
Location: Daytona Beach, FL, USA
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 Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 3:52 am Post subject: |
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| Xela wrote: | | Even I never believed the US could be that way. |
Neither do 67% of Americans.
This time last year, 49% of Americans voiced a strong dissent about the way that the American government is handling everything, home and abroad (I was one of them). We got people working in grassroots campaigns who never took an interest in politics before. Most of us were under the age of 40 and were infuriated with the fact that the people who are in charge of our country seemed to be operating under the influence of something toxic. None of us wanted to go to war, all of us were lied to about the cause of the war, and almost all of us want to bring the soldiers home and out of harms way.
Now the news reports here are saying that our Vice President is infuriated at the suggestion that we make an anti-torture clause permanent. Can you imagine?? Needless to say that only 15% or so of Americans approve of Mr. Cheney's performance, and I like to think that the 15% is comprised of illiterate people, the mentally unstable, or both.
So, in summation: Just remember that not all Americans are as trigger-happy and foolish as our administration. I assure you that there is majority of American people right now who are infuriated about what is being done in the name of our homeland. |
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vorteks
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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That s a quite reassuring report, Jadore. I have one question i find important tho...
What has changed over the last year that made a government elected with record support in us american history (60.6 million supporters) turn out to get 2 us americans on 3 distrusting its decisions. Does it have anything to do with political marketing schedules and the influenciable nature of the electors? How do you interpret such a radical change in such a short time? Second mandate automatic curse? I d be interested in your analyses... |
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JadoreBaikonur
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 30
Location: Daytona Beach, FL, USA
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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| vorteks wrote: | | What has changed over the last year that made a government elected with record support in us american history (60.6 million supporters) turn out to get 2 us americans on 3 distrusting its decisions. |
Don't forget - Bush might have gotten the most votes in U.S. history, but John Kerry got the second highest number of votes in U.S. history, too. This election was a highly polarizing one - on one side was the group of people who are either really, really rich, patriotic to a fault (and willing to overlook all the President's mistakes), foolishly optimistic, or uninformed. On the other side, you had a group that was mostly made up of people who were so enraged with the job Bush was doing that they went out and did grassroots campaigns for whoever could oust Bush. So while Bush won with a record-setting amount of votes, the vote was still incredibly close.
| vorteks wrote: | | Does it have anything to do with political marketing schedules and the influenciable nature of the electors? |
Yes, absolutely. The Republicans (through Karl Rove) ran a filthy, misleading campaign against John Kerry. They viciously attacked his military record and viciously attacked the fact that he was married to a foreign woman. The Democrats tried to take the high road and not address the baseless attacks, but in the end it cost them the election because there are too many people who are likely to see the ad and believe it at face-value as opposed to doing some research. It's sad, but it's very true.
| vorteks wrote: | | How do you interpret such a radical change in such a short time? Second mandate automatic curse? |
I think that the people who voted for Bush last November but who say the wouldn't do so again now are incredibly disillusioned. At the time, they believed that it was better to stay with who you had in office instead of change it up for a guy you were unsure about. It's hard for people to want to change leaders in the middle of a war. But now the U.S. media is waking up and reporting on the mishandlings and mistakes of the government here, and people are suddenly having a realization that, oh crap, we voted for the wrong guy.
I think Hurricane Katrina helped a lot of people "wake up" - seeing how entirely inept our government was, and how all the promises that the United States is safer under his rule were all lies. We all started to wonder, if our government can't help people and cities devastated by a natural disaster (which they had plenty of specific warning about), how would they handle another terrorist attack? |
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vorteks
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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I can only sympathise with your efforts to try to restore democracy in the US by getting rid of a warmongering unethical government using emotional tools (religion and patriotism) to manipulate its electoral base, but I d like to add a few remarks to what you said :
Since there arent 60 million very rich people in the US (by western standards), while being very influencial in a system where candidates are being marketed like basic goods and services, the election is majoritarily due to patriotism and desinformation and this is precisely what worries the international community. The fear strategy proved to be quite efficient, since neo cons got better electoral results in 2004 than in year 2000, when Gore got defeated with MORE supporters than Bush.
I think democrats failed to provide a candidate with strong humanist beliefs that could offer a valid alternative to the securitarian neo conservative dialectic. Democrats copied the diffamatory neo con speach, attacking Bush on his weak military past, instead of showing the anti democratic nature of this goverment, internally by reducing individual liberties and encouraging social injustice, and internationally by reducing US credibility and endangering international institutions.
I fail to understand how being foreign can affect your popularity in a country built by settlers with 99,99% of its population generated by immigrants over the last 200 years. Schwarzy proves that you can be a foreigner, have a foreign accent and be popular (and even populist =))
I doubt that current polls are really representative of a better level of conciousness in the US population. As long as democrats won t offer a credible alternative, with imaginative solutions centered on ethical concerns and embodied by charismatic leaders, the trend will stay on abrupt patriotism, selfishness and disregard for truth. After all democrats are being funded by economic lobbies as well...how are those lobbies better for US citizens wellness and global stability is still to be proved...
I d also like to respond to Vitalsigns asking why foreigners focused so much on US politics. We aren t given much choice, since a unilateral world means the US becomes the center of the decisions that affect our everyday life and children s security, we have to understand it and influence it, since we can t vote for or against it. That s also the use of international institutions that respect the diversity of global philosophies : the ability to get your opinion represented. |
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JadoreBaikonur
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 30
Location: Daytona Beach, FL, USA
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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| vorteks wrote: | | Since there arent 60 million very rich people in the US (by western standards), while being very influencial in a system where candidates are being marketed like basic goods and services, the election is majoritarily due to patriotism and desinformation and this is precisely what worries the international community. The fear strategy proved to be quite efficient, since neo cons got better electoral results in 2004 than in year 2000, when Gore got defeated with MORE supporters than Bush. |
Right - but the 2000 election is one that is still viewed as sketchy and corrupt. Even today there are still claims that voting machines (in heavily Republican-controlled areas) disregarded votes for the Democratic candidate, or change the vote from Democrat to Republican, or didn't register the vote at all (in areas where the population was primarily Democrat). The voting machine system is terrible in that it's a Windows-based system that is linked up to an easily-hackable network. The whole system is a mess.
Don't even get me started on the Electoral College. I think it is the most redundant system in the U.S. government (and I don't mean that in a good way).
| vorteks wrote: | | I think democrats failed to provide a candidate with strong humanist beliefs that could offer a valid alternative to the securitarian neo conservative dialectic. Democrats copied the diffamatory neo con speach, attacking Bush on his weak military past, instead of showing the anti democratic nature of this goverment, internally by reducing individual liberties and encouraging social injustice, and internationally by reducing US credibility and endangering international institutions. |
That's very true, and that's why a lot of sane, rational people voted for Bush last November. I asked my mother-in-law who she voted for, and she said, "Bush, but we weren't happy about it."
The Democrats right now are stuggling to create a unified identity for the party and send out a clear message about what the Democratic party's goals are. They've ridden too long on the "We're Not Bush!" platform and clearly it isn't working. People want a good, clean, functional government - not the lesser of two evils.
Thankfully, things are slowly taking shape within the Democratic party. They're supporting Hillary Clinton for a 2008 presidential bid, and she's prepping the scene by letting everyone know that she works for the poor people, is moderate when it comes to things like abortion and the death penalty, is bold enough to call out injustice when she sees it, and has the benefit of standing over her husbands shoulder for eight years while he ran a (very, very successful and mostly popular) presidency. Perhaps it's all a facade, but at this point we are resigned to the "lesser of two evils" scenario (and we really could do a lot worse).
| vorteks wrote: | | I fail to understand how being foreign can affect your popularity in a country built by settlers with 99,99% of its population generated by immigrants over the last 200 years. Schwarzy proves that you can be a foreigner, have a foreign accent and be popular (and even populist =)) |
I hate to admit this since I, myself, am the child of immigrant parents - but in rural areas and in the southern United States (like Florida, where I live now), there is an obnoxious amount of xenophobia. Obnoxious. People still wave the confederate flag around, proud of their racist roots. These are the people who were quick to put bumper stickers on their SUV's or pickup trucks that said, "BOYCOTT FRANCE" or "bin Laden wants you to vote for Kerry". I can't explain it other than to say that people fear what they don't know (and these people brag that they have never left their city or state).
| vorteks wrote: | | I doubt that current polls are really representative of a better level of conciousness in the US population. As long as democrats won t offer a credible alternative, with imaginative solutions centered on ethical concerns and embodied by charismatic leaders, the trend will stay on abrupt patriotism, selfishness and disregard for truth. After all democrats are being funded by economic lobbies as well...how are those lobbies better for US citizens wellness and global stability is still to be proved... |
I've noticed, even in my conservative bubble of Florida, that the population genuinely is getting sick of being lied to and beaten around. I'm sorry to say that it's taken six years, but we're at least at the point where we can formulate courses of action and respond in the form of voting in new people during the '06 midterm elections. Hopefully at that point we'll regain the intended balance of power in our government and blatant abuses of power will no longer be tolerated.
Also to remind everyone of history - Bill Clinton was midway through his second term as President when the Senate and the House of Representatives went from being "blue" to turning "red" after the midterm elections. Filling up the two other branches of government with opposition party members caused the stupid charge of perjury to go through, resulting in his impeachment.
Perjury about personal conduct < Perjury that cost 2,000+ people their lives, countless more their jobs, and countless more their wellbeing. |
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mediashark
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Joined: 04 Nov 2004
Posts: 1599
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Xela wrote: | Keoki_,
I think Mr Spice was just trying to avoid talking to you, that's all. |
Talking with yourself lately? Feeling lonely?  |
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Xela
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Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:19 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm never lonely with you around, Mediashark.. |
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mediashark
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Ooooh I feel warm and fuzzy all over.... |
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Xela
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| It's only a matter of time, Mediashark.. |
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MrSpice
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Joined: 14 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:04 am Post subject: |
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| JadoreBaikonur: I think you forget to mention that there are many domestic policies and issues that affect our elections quite a bit. People in other countries know nothing about those issues. For example, John Kerry was successfully portrayed by republicans as a free-spending liberal, someone who can and will raise taxes. So, many people who very sensitive on that issue voted for Bush even if they strongly opposed to war. War was only 1 of many issues on the ballot. And even now when more and more Americans oppose the war, domestic issues is what people really care about. Secondly, when you talk about the Bush administration, let's not generalize and remember that there are able and bright people in this adminstration too. I voted for Kerry myself, but I had serious doubts and still do about his inclination to expand the size of the government. You can say - Bush expanded this government more than anybody and spent like a drunen sailor - and you would be right. Yet, I have a suspision that peolpe like Kerry are even more likely to advocate a large government role, be against a real scholl reform, advocate obsessive and overly aggresive environmental policies, etc. The point is that when people hear or see Bush, they think about the War. But there's much more to the elections in the US than the war... |
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JadoreBaikonur
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
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Location: Daytona Beach, FL, USA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:02 am Post subject: |
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| MrSpice wrote: | | JadoreBaikonur: I think you forget to mention that there are many domestic policies and issues that affect our elections quite a bit. People in other countries know nothing about those issues. For example, John Kerry was successfully portrayed by republicans as a free-spending liberal, someone who can and will raise taxes. So, many people who very sensitive on that issue voted for Bush even if they strongly opposed to war. |
That's true, and I am guilty of generalizing sometimes. The thing that I couldn't understand with this past election was, the American people had four years of "testing" and could see for themselves that our federal budget, that had been handed to Bush with a record surplus, had turned into a record defecit. They had the opportunity to see for themselves that Bush's campaign promises in 2000 had gone unfulfilled. Healthcare wasn't "fixed", wasn't even touched. Social Security was tinkered with in a way that Americans hated. Proof already existed that the WMD argument with Iraq was baseless. We didn't see more cops on our streets as promised, prescription costs were still absurdely high, and record number of people were still unemployed. We all knew about the cronie-induced, no-bid contracts.
So all of us had four years of testing that showed that the experiment was a failure.
When something has proven to be a failure, you ditch it in favor of something that will work better.
I'm not saying John Kerry was guy who was going to get into government and wave his magic wand and fix everything. But a lot of us wondered, how could he possibly be any worse than Bush.
I just didn't understand how people could interpret Bush's first term to be successful (unless they were really rich and benefitted from his wealthy-coddling policies).
| MrSpice wrote: | | Secondly, when you talk about the Bush administration, let's not generalize and remember that there are able and bright people in this adminstration too. |
I agree - I'm also very disturbed at the fact that some of the brightest minds have been pushed out because they disagree with Bush's policies [see: Colin Powell, Richard Clarke, Susan Wood, Frank Davidoff, et cetera].
| MrSpice wrote: | | I voted for Kerry myself, but I had serious doubts and still do about his inclination to expand the size of the government. You can say - Bush expanded this government more than anybody and spent like a drunen sailor - and you would be right. Yet, I have a suspision that peolpe like Kerry are even more likely to advocate a large government role, be against a real scholl reform, advocate obsessive and overly aggresive environmental policies, etc. |
Why do you think so?
I think that if Kerry had been elected (and if Hillary or another notable Democrat is elected in '08 ), they'll be viewed as "aggressive" and "obsessive" because with things like environmental standards, Bush set the bar completely down as far as it would go. Any improvement on that will probably look shocking by comparison.
Why do you think Kerry would've advocated a larger government? A lot of the things he campaigned with would've made the government smaller, and would've decreased government's involvement in people's lives.
Why do you think he'd be against school reform? I read interviews he did and saw footage of him getting absolutely pissed off when he saw the state of American schools. It is really an embarassment that we're raised to be so patriotic and yet there are still school districts without computers or textbooks. |
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MrSpice
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:17 am Post subject: |
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JadoreBaikonur: First of all, we have distinguish the things that "Americans hated" or "hate" and what is the best and most efficient way to implement economic policies. I, personally, really like the idea of paritally privatising social security. The reason is simple: the current program is unsustainable. And you have to give the people that pay taxes the choice of managing and investing their money the way they see fit. Obviously, when you touch such a huge entitlement program, millions will complain, interest groups will spend all they can to defeat the changes. And the salesman in cheaf is not very coherent even on his best days, no wonder he could could not sell this idea. However, the concept of letting people use part of their social security tax payment for themselves and being able to invest that money in a way different from the government's idea of good investing and pass that money to the future generations is, in my humble opinion, a good idea.
Now, John Kerry is very similar to GW Bush in many ways. Just like GW, he is a silver-spooner who went to posh boarding schools, did rather poorly in college (his grades were similar to Bush's) and spend most of his life in the government in one of the most liberal states (economically) in the US. In his many years in Congress, he hardly distinguished himself as a leader. This is really a long discussion and wil lead to the same question on your part at the end - how can he be any worse than Bush? I think his economic policies could have been worse, but we will never know. I think both candidates got so many votes only because they played on voter's anger (for or against the war), ran expensive ads themselves and used independent groups to do the dirty work for them... There's was very little substance in Kerry's critisizm of Iraq. And there was very little substance in Bush's talk about his fight against terrorism - it was all about soundbytes. I hope we will have a better choice in 2008. |
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vorteks
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:55 am Post subject: |
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MrSpice,
I first want to say that I appreciate the openess and sincerity that current debators show in their posts that goes far beyond the usual manichean political visions, stripped off from basic patriotic feelings and the name calling it implies.
As I stated in a former post, the stakes of the us american elections escape pure domestic issues, since the Bush administration, being sovereignist, deny the authority of international institutions. Global rules conflict with every country s sovereignty, but this is the price to pay to allow a fluid management of naturally conflicting and competing interests. The concept of "pre emptiveness" is indeed dangerous for global stability, so are simplistic religious references applied to complicated realities (good and evil).
When the strength of your army gives you automaticly the role of world police, the responsabilities that it implies gives you the obligation to be examplary, especially while defending democratic values. Each us american holds in his vote this extra responsability. In this context, false evidences, xenophobia, diffamatory campains, bigottery, abuse of power, disrespect for human rights are tools that USA can t afford to use, contrarily to Russia or China who don t claim and don t aim to hold democratic values.
Regarding the role of a government and private/pubic ownership, my vision is far from being dogmatic. Experience shows that private ownership brings the wealth needed for a collective well being and that bureaucracy hinders the creation of wealth. On another hand, there are some domains where the collective solutions are much more efficent and safer than private entrepreneurship. For example, nationwide health management allows scale savings and gives the power to negociate medicine prices against pharmaceutical lobbies greed. Environment friendly energies need long term investments that private firms can t afford, same logic for weapons industries, education...The problem with pure capitalistic logics is a dehumanised approach of wealth creation, capital owners totally ignoring workers realities. This is why ethics is so important in the education of future industry captains AND politicians. Pragmatism doesnt exclude to keep ideals as long term goals.
Jadore,
If democrats can win due to the usual alternance after the second mandate, I m unsure using "bad looser" arguments will help a lot (they cheated!). It would be much wiser to wonder what went wrong and try to find out how to improve it. Even if the show must go on and trashing the opposite side is part of the entertainment, democrats would be wise not to use neo cons diffamatory arguments and develop their own. You could for example show with foreign references how efficient public services can increase social comfort. If the british labour party learnt a lot from the us american experiences, may be liberals could also learn from their european cousins regarding wealth redistribution, or from the scandinavians and their flexisecurity.
Just a few path for you to explore... |
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JadoreBaikonur
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 30
Location: Daytona Beach, FL, USA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:47 am Post subject: |
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| vorteks wrote: | | If democrats can win due to the usual alternance after the second mandate, I m unsure using "bad looser" arguments will help a lot (they cheated!). It would be much wiser to wonder what went wrong and try to find out how to improve it. Even if the show must go on and trashing the opposite side is part of the entertainment, democrats would be wise not to use neo cons diffamatory arguments and develop their own. You could for example show with foreign references how efficient public services can increase social comfort. If the british labour party learnt a lot from the us american experiences, may be liberals could also learn from their european cousins regarding wealth redistribution, or from the scandinavians and their flexisecurity. |
I agree completely. That's one big thing that us non-governmental, average citizen Democrats are so pissed off about - that it seems the party is hell-bent on using the "We're Not Bush!" angle for as long as possible (even though they've been proven, in numerous elections, to be bad tactics).
I think that the Democratic party is slowwwwly coming out of its cuccoon and getting a backbone, and is starting to be vocal in the things it stands for. We'll see. |
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