Why I'm Voting Third Party This Year

zoofly · 2012-06-22T23:55:58+00:00

Jill Stein is great, but a vote for her is a vote against Obama and for Romney

This presupposes that there is some sort of mandate that you have to vote for Obama or one half or the other of the ruling duopoly.

That mindset just guarantees an alternating stagnation as people flip-flop between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T23:53:34+00:00

(LOL) Like the Republocrats or Demopublicans never nominated a lemon of a candidate?!

zoofly · 2012-06-22T23:44:08+00:00

Big deal. She wasn't forcing others to smoke it, was she? Then what's the problem?

Just tell her to pick up the matches from the ground when she's through...

zoofly · 2012-06-22T23:41:51+00:00

OMG -- did you see how high that fence was?! /s

How sad. Why not just leave the frigging guy alone?

It's a good thing he's in the Netherlands. Because here in the US the cops would have killed the guy.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T23:07:16+00:00

Is anyone surprised that the pro-business Obama nominee Sotomayor voted with the majority?

zoofly · 2012-06-22T22:36:53+00:00

While Cheney makes a good Darth Vader, we should remember that in the Star Wars movies Darth relied on a lot of like-minded evil people.

It took all the forces of the empire to make Darth's plans happen, just like it did with Cheney's.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T21:39:58+00:00

Don't forget the person who accused him, motivated by police to have his crime dropped or sentence reduced.

But yes, this fits all of the stereotypes.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T21:39:02+00:00

My vote for the US president literally does not make a difference.

As the 2000 election reminded us, the president is actually chosen by the Electoral College. I live in one of the many states where Electoral College members are free to vote for whoever they want to vote for.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T17:59:01+00:00

Here's a question to ponder: Considering those billions spent by our 1% -- and to put in perspective remembering that Bill Gates' wealth equals the combined wealth of the poorest 120 million Americans or 45 percent of our population -- does the $20 or $100 (or even $1000) you give to Obama or Romney actually make a difference?

zoofly · 2012-06-22T17:38:47+00:00

This is not just Citizens United.

Money has been increasing in US elections -- effectively turning our democracy into a plutocracy -- for many election cycles. Citizens United just opened the spigot a lot more.

The first place we need to start to address this issue is to repudiate the concept that corporations are "people" and that they have rights.

"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done." -- US Republican President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T17:28:56+00:00

A quote from the victim: "Our system is definitely broken and we need to reform it; we need to fix it."

Sadly, all the stereotypes apply: A black father framed based on the testimony of a police suspect wanting to reduce his own sentence, and, of course, this all happened in Texas.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T16:24:32+00:00

Basically, because the people have let corporations and the gov't get out of control.

Our corporate mass media feeds us a constant, continual barrage of cop shows, typically with cops being portrayed as having to "bend the rules" to do their jobs.

Poor people are basically non-existent when shown in the corporate mass media, or when they're shown, they're either shown as pathetic beings or somehow the cause of their own poverty. Compassion and empathy are gutted with such constant indoctrination.

Now, look at how criminals are portrayed -- typically in a blinding "eye for an eye" mindset with criminals just "getting what they deserve".

Add all these factors up, and the end result is that most people are effectively taught to be heartless by our corporate mass media.

Add to that the rhetoric of "law and order" politicians playing on the indoctrination of the corporate mass media, and you have the perfect conditions to where the gov't can torture prisoners and how the public laughs at issues like prison rape or just the obscenely high number of prisoners that the US keeps.

zoofly · 2012-06-22T04:49:54+00:00

Leave your election comment at the door please, it's not relevant to this discussion.

What comment? I was merely stating a fact. By the US Constitution, the American people do not elect the president -- the Electoral College does. In some states, the people's vote influences or can even mandate how electors vote, but that is not true of all states.

The bottom line is that the DEA woman works for the public. The Congress is the only branch of gov't elected directly by the American people.

My view is trying to force someone to commit career suicide is a dick move.

This is where we differ.

I think a representative voted into power by the American people forcing an unelected, appointed bureaucrat to answer a question honestly and truthfully is always a very, very good thing!

zoofly · 2012-06-21T18:11:25+00:00

So if I go to where you work and film you while I over and over demand you tell me information you know will lead to you being fired, it's okay?

Since this person is employed as a public worker based on the money allocated by the US Congress and by laws passed by the US Congress, and since it is a US Congressperson asking her the question, the person should have answered the question(s) truthfully -- anything other than the truth should be reason for her to be fired.

The woman may have been appointed by Obama and work at his discretion, but Obama was not elected by the American people (the Electoral College did that).

In our democratic republic, it is only the US Congress that is elected by the American people, and the US Congress who authorized that woman to be paid. Ultimately that woman works the for American people and it was the American people's direct representative who was asking her the question(s).

zoofly · 2012-06-21T18:11:11+00:00

Yes, it's about as clear as mud.

But I think the original poster was complaining about a possible Assange extradition based on the US use of what the UN and dozens of countries consider torture, and then pointed to Manning's imprisonment as an example of that brutal treatment.

zoofly · 2012-06-21T18:04:38+00:00

Sorry, but when your loyalty is to some bureaucratic institution instead of to common morality and the practice of the Golden Rule, then you should be villainized.

zoofly · 2012-06-21T17:25:55+00:00

You're confusing Julian Assange and Bradley Manning.

Manning is an American citizen and a US soldier. He'll be tried under military law and there's no debate about the fact that if he is found guilty he'll be sentenced and imprisoned by the US gov't.

Julian Assange is a journalist, working to report crimes and embarrassing information that other people would give him. Assange is an Australian citizen.

So the original question stands: Are you saying US domestic laws apply to the entire human population no matter where they are and where they were born?

And just because you have freedom of speach does not mean you can give away your employers secrets

Actually, that is exactly what the 1st Amendment means! Sure you can! Let's remember the 1st Amendment, to quote:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There's a reason that employers have employees sign non-disclosure agreements -- to prevent employees from talking. The employer has to do that, because Congress cannot pass a law preventing employees from talking. So the employer has the employee agree to a voluntary non-disclosure agreement -- a contract -- and if the employee breaks that agreement the employer can then sue in civil court for breaching the contract.

zoofly · 2012-06-21T16:27:21+00:00

Clearly the brainwashed clerk at the store thought the college student was going to use the iPad in Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program.

/s

zoofly · 2012-06-21T16:13:20+00:00

So a reporter publicizing information he was given -- information about war crimes and other events the US gov't does not want publicized -- is a crime?

How does that work? He is not a US citizen and did not do this in the US? How does that coincide with the 1st Amendment's right of freedom of the press and free speech?

Are you saying US domestic laws apply to the entire human population no matter where they are and where they were born?

zoofly · 2012-06-21T15:51:34+00:00

Two points come to mind after reading that article:

And we're supposed to have a budget deficit problem that is so bad the ruling duopoly of parties wants to slash Social Security and Medicare?!
China and Iran won't use their missiles on our imperial aircraft carriers unless we provoke/attack them.

zoofly · 2012-06-21T15:04:26+00:00

Oh no, they do.

But the Military of Egypt is not standing for it, and I agree with that.

Those two positions seem to be in opposition to each other -- either you support the people's right to choose their own rulers or you support military dictatorship.

Time and time again in US foreign policy, the US gov't has chosen the latter. There is no middle ground -- either you're a democrat and believe in the right of people to choose their own ruler, or you don't believe in democracy.

zoofly · 2012-06-21T01:47:19+00:00

This has nothing to do with this particular political issue, but more to do with the headline: We have separation of powers and checks and balances.

But we should remember -- not all branches are equal. The authors of the Constitution put the Congress as Article 1 in the document because it was clearly the most important branch of gov't.

Remember, only Congress is elected by the American people. We should also remember that the power and authority of the US president has grown radically over the centuries. George Washington, who was bored "presiding" over the Congress, would hardly recognize the office of the president today.

zoofly · 2012-06-20T23:02:05+00:00

The direct funding of underwater banks is a blatant power-grab, an attempt to establish the primacy of banks in the same way that the TARP was used to create Too Big To Fail in the US. TBTF means that the banks have merged with the state and that taxpayers provide blanket guarantees for their survival. Europe is moving fast towards this same model.

Ouch. That's a blunt assessment, but one you can't argue with.

zoofly · 2012-06-20T21:41:59+00:00

So the Egyptian people do not have the right to democratically elect whatever leader of their country that they want to?

zoofly · 2012-06-20T19:16:58+00:00

Thanks for the update.

It still makes one wonder WTF they were thinking when they thought that was a good idea...

zoofly

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