Bill Clinton Speech Asks Undecided Voters To Hang On, Give Obama Another Chance

Libs like me have to choose between voting the lesser evil and inviting ourselves to be treated as doormats, or voting for a 3rd party that has no chance to win effectively throwing our vote away.

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Obama, himself, doesn't believe that and supports voting for third parties over Democrats, even when Democratic turnout is at stake.  Some, but not all, examples of Obama supporting third party or Republican candidates over Democrats:

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek in Florida.



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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

JamesBurke of "Connections"-fame produced an excellent program about 30 years ago called "AfterTheWarming" that you can see online.  

It's done as if it's 2050 with Burke looking back over the history of the world's climate changes and the effect that cyclical warming and cooling has had on the development of animal, vegetation, and civilization.  Up until the industrial revolution, how what's happening is man-made, how we know that it's man-made, and how fast it's happening.  In less than one generation, human civilization on the planet is going to irrevocably break down.  Mass die-off of species, specifically humans, from a whole host of assaults (famine, drought, disease, pandemics, wars, etc.). 

If every Fox viewer saw it, they might be convinced, but it wouldn't matter; it's too late.  

What's happening politically now is that the world leaders are arranging for the time when chaos will be the order of the day.  The loss of civil liberties, setting up for martial law, endless wars, etc.  I think they're giving the 'haves' one last bite at the apple, to amass as much wealth as they can, to move their families to high ground for the coming bad times.  The US is positioning itself much like the RomanEmpire did, and will take what it wants through military might - Not for we ordinary mortals, mind you, but for the survival of the elites.  

I think it's obvious that the decision was made some time ago, like several decades ago, that the US wasn't going to respond and try to avert the catastrophe.  Too many people to get on board, too much work, and altruistic work at that.  It was a cynical and corrupt decision, with greed controlling it, with the likes of JimBaker and the Bushes making fortunes by the decision (in oil).  War industries were another venue for amassing great wealth (that's the path that Cheney took).

In the late 1990s, when the bubbles were taking shape, I estimated that those who didn't have a net worth of, at least, $250,000 wouldn't stand a chance; I'm revising that upwards to $5 million.  That's just bare bones, to keep from dying from an inability to purchase food and water, and keep a roof over your head that you don't have to trade watch duty with family and friends to keep marauders out.  

Bleak?  You bet.  But we have to start talking about it and demanding politicians address it.  

Watch "AfterTheWarming" with your families and friends.  It's the only way that not prosecuting WallStreet, torturers, war criminals, war profiteering, NDAA, drones on borders, job outsourcing free trade treaties like SKoreaAFTA/PanamaAFTA/ColombiaAFTA, and the secret TransPacificFreeTradeTreaty, etc., make any sense.  
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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

I'm wondering, too...who will you vote for? 

I do not disagree with anything you wrote (and would even add a few "disappointments" such as Montsanto CEO/Lobbyist as head of FDA). However, if you think a change back to Republican leadership is somehow going to fix these things, you are sadly mistaken. There is not one person who will be a perfect president. Not one. We are stuck with which side outweighs the other. 

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If you want to know why this liberal Democrat can't vote for Obama, and understand the alternatives, read this.

Then read John Cusack's Interview of Law Professor Jonathan Turley About the Obama Administration's War on the Constitution and journalist Russell Mokhiber's Ten Reasons I'm Not With Barack Obama.

Then read/listen to A Great Silence is Spreading Over the Natural World.

And Chris Hedges' Life Is Sacred (no, it's not about abortion).

Then consider all of it against the backdrop of this:

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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

Obama's spin when trying to get Sotomayor confirmed (a lackluster intellect if ever there was one) was that she'd be effective at countering the conservati­ves arguments when it came to trying to pull Kennedy over.  It hasn't happened; Roberts, Alito, are Scalia wield far greater political warfare skills.  

And when RuthBaderG­insburg considers 'Nino' (Scalia) to be her closest friend, vacationin­g with him off the Court, it's Democrats who need to wake up to the fact that we're in a war with the right and no amount of turning the other cheek is going to stop the rightwing.

We need more Earl Warrens.  What we don't need are politicians looking to avoid a fight, and want to work "in a bipartisan manner".  Republicans declared war on Democrats years and years ago, while Democrats keep trying to "make nice".  Democratic politicians have gotten fat and lazy, feathering their own nests while Republicans have made long inroads into furthering corporate interests.  

Whether Democrats are inept or corrupt, the result is the same: They have failed to protect the interests of the 99%.  And all that they're putting out this campaign season are warmed-over Republican-like policies when drastic populist steps need to be taken.
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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

In claims against big business, Sotomayor (herself a former corporate lawyer) wrote the dissent in a 2-1 decision that ultimately favored victims' families.  This was concerning the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800 off of LongIsland.  Sotomayor wrote, "The crash hadn't occurred in US territorial waters, therefore victims' families shouldn't have had the right to sue for extra damages."  She wrote that the judges who disagreed with her were ignoring legislative history and earlier case law," saying "their decision was a legislative policy choice which shouldn't be made by the courts".  

That's conservative talk.

In 2002, on the issue of abortion, Sotomayor upheld Bush's 'Global Gag Rule' (the policy of withholding funds for international groups that offer family planning information and services, including abortion).  

On the issue of discrimination, she frequently rules against plaintiffs.  For example, in 2004, she ruled against African-American corrections' officers who said they were retaliated against for filing discrimination complaints.

Sotomayor certainly doesn't look at the law through the prism of how it serves the interests of the People.


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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

Both Sotomayor and Kagan are to the right of the justices that they replaced (Souter and Stevens).

http://www­.commondre­ams.org/vi­ew/2010/05­/09-0

http://www­.salon.com­/news/opin­ion/glenn_­greenwald/­2010/04/13­/kagan

http://www­.fair.org/­index.php?­page=4074

http://www.theroot.com/views/sotomayor-liberal-enough?page=0,1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/18/AR2009071801787.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2009/07/17/abcs-greenburg-sotomayor-not-liberal-activist-almost-conservative

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2011/06/28/nprs-totenberg-kagan-sotomayor-not-nearly-liberal-predecessors

http://hispanic9.com/true_to_hispanic_beliefs,_sotomayor_is_not_a_liberal.htm

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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

That has been the scare tactic used for the past 30 years, and the Supreme Court has moved farther and farther to the right despite electing Democratic presidents and senators.  Scalia and Thomas made it through a Democratically-controlled Judiciary Committee and Senate.  And Democrats voted to confirm Alito (58-42) and Roberts (78-22) - So much for the DLC's pro-Blue Dog argument.

The Supreme Court is already lost.  

Obama's appointmen­ts are really nothing to defend.  Elena Kagan is the Goldman-Sacks seat, not to mention that she was the 5th vote in rolling back Miranda a few weeks ago.

And Sotomayor was with the Scalia-Thomas-Alito faction that boycotted the SOTU - Sotomayor was in Guam, addressing a group of students and swearing in new members of the Guam Bar Association, a first for a US Supreme Court Justice (are you kidding, Sonia, missing the most public showing of US democracy and the 3 branches of government by leaving the US for a 5 day trip to Guam?).

If who gets to replace RuthBaderG­insburg was such a worry, don't you think she would step down now while it's assured a Democratic president would be choosing?  

And comments like this one that she made about Roe v. Wade last week, nobody should be hoping for more like her on the bench.  She's bought the "activist judges" argument of the rightwing, instead of the actual significan­ce of the decision was about the recognitio­n of people's privacy rights.   

The real problem we're facing is a president and a Democratic­Party that, for whatever reason (naivete or a convenient cover for their own corruption­), stubbornly clings to the 'bipartisa­nship model' ("Can't we all get along?") style of legislatin­g and governing that hasn't worked for decades.  I don't know how many ways Republican­s can say "Go frick yourselves­" before Obama and Democrats play to win -- Probably as long as there are people like you who give Obama and Democrats a pass.  

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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

To Obama's 'most ardent fans':

We've been doing it your way, putting the lesser of two eviIs into office, for more than 20 years now, and the government and the Democratic­Party keeps moving farther to the right.  That's because your way is to lie to the American people and put Republican­s-in-Democ­rats'-clot­hing into office. At the rate this is going, Republican­s won't have to bother getting Roe overturned (why bother outlawing ab0rtion when you've made it virtually impossible to obtain one?).  Regulating banks and Wall Street won't be necessary because the top 1 percent will have ALL of the money.    The disabled and elderly will be dead, so privatizin­g Social Security won't be much of an issue.  Schools will be all privatized under Democrats and only those employed and making a great salary will be able to send their children to good charter schools.  PBS has had its funding slashed under Democrats so children will have no commercial­-free children's programmin­g and will be rank-and-f­ile corporate slaves.  And the wars, expanded under Obama and Democrats (beyond what BushCheney did) will still be going on when your children have children.

If you are a liberal, if you and I are on the same side and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protectin­g Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies, NOT Democratic policies, when do you realize that maybe you don't know what you're talking about? 

When do you realize that you've become that classic definition for 'insan!ty' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?

Do you ever realize it?
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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

Obama's been completely ineffective as a leader and has continued to take the country down the wrong path.

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I think Obama's "led" brilliantly; just not on the people's behalf.  He's managed to deliver to the Corporate Masters while convincing his 'most ardent supporters' that he's either too nice, inept, or that his failures are because of Republicans,  [pick your excuse].

Talk of Democratic politicians having no spines are greatly exaggerated, just like Obama's timidity is myth:  He's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base. 

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like jobs, civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare, WallStreet reform, environmental and energy issues, etc.). 

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks,  don't take 'no' for an answer, never back away, you'll wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish Clinton's machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the RoveMachine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching BushCheney off the table, have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it. 

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

Saying it doesn't make it so.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporations' interests.
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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

Not only kept in effect, but expanded on.  NDAA.  Executive branch extra-legal killing and imprisoning indefinitely, with no charges nor due process, of any American citizen?
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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

Did you hear BillClinton praise SimpsonBowles last nite?

 
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Not only did Clinton praise SimpsonBowles, NancyPelosi now says she'll back SimpsonBowles, and two days ago SenateMajorityWhip DickDurbin told AndreaMitchell that Obama will use SimpsonBowles as the template for his budget.

When politicians say things like this before elections, it means that is what they and their party are running on.

Just like when NancyPelosi took impeachment off the table a few weeks before the 2006 elections.  So that if/when Democrats took over the majority, she could say that it was what Democrats ran on.

And just like before the 2010 midterms, when Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress. More caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republican­s:

Aides say that the president’ s been spending “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0,” brainstorm­ing with administra­tion officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the WhiteHouse.

And despite the prediction­s that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislatin­g power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn’t thinking of the next two years as a period that’ll be marked with the same obstructiv­e nature from the GOP.

“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republica­ns] feel more responsibl­e, either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipate­d, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them,” Obama says. “Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”

DickDurbin says Obama’s post-elect­ion agenda “will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people.” TomDaschle says Obama has to reach out more: “The keyword is inclusion. He’s got to find ways to be inclusive. “

This after Republican­s couldn’t have been clearer, from even before Obama got into the WhiteHouse, that they had no intention of working with him or Democrats.

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Barack Obama Campaign Finance Reforms Fiddled While System Crumbled

The thought of Republicans taking over is a terrifying thought to me.

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I'm an old, OLD liberal Democrat and the "lesser of two evils"-arg­ument just doesn't work anymore.

How can you expect to be taken seriously when you say that Republican­s are by far worse when Obama's continuing just about all the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better:  

How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, NDAA, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret?  It's Pure Kafka.

I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.  

And it's Obama who's put SocialSecu­rity and Medicare and Medicaid on the table.

At this point, I'd argue that Obama-Demo­crats are worse.  BushCheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama-Demo­crats ran on knowing better.  

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate­MastersOfT­heUniverse­' have charted their plans years in advance and then they select the politician with the personalit­y that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.

If you want to lie the country into war for oil and profiteeri­ng, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it, with DickCheney­ (the former SecretaryO­fDefense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier) actually running the operation from the shadows.  

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that.  They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust.  BarackObam­a.   

Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better.  I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

You continue to support Obama-Demo­crats at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporatio­ns and establishm­ent elites.

Why should Obama-Demo­crats do anything for you if they know you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republican­s?
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