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Vote for Jill Stein and watch both the crooked Democrats and the Republicans be all washed up in 2016. I'd much prefer that than to have yet another disappointing Obama term. Lets face it, Obama and the Democrats just did not work for their voters and, like with the banksters, if you keep bailing them out...there is no incentive to be honest and fair. Realizing that all they have to do is use their rhetoric to fool the people and then go back to working only for the 1%. What we need here is a "tough love" slap on the hand and show these people that they cannot get away with it anymore. And by electing Jill Stein you will do just that. The Dems and the Repubs will be shocked and so will their wealthy backers. That's the only way, short of rioting in the streets, that we can really change things.
If in pre-Fortress Brest, pre-Pearl Harbor 1941 I were a free adult U.S. citizen and were suddenly by some fluke of physics teleported into the police-state the United States has now become, I would assume the Nazis had won.
No we don't have death camps -- not yet -- but the total loss of our constitutional rights and the 24/7 surveillance and the mostly unspoken but utterly rational horror of being tortured that now oppresses us all is exactly the sort of governance Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo were imposing on the entire world.
Nevertheless, as Mr. Hartmann says, though the difference between Obama and Romney is surely no difference in kind, it is unquestionably a difference in degree. Hence I ask myself the only real question in this election. Do I want full-fledged fascism now? Or do I want to (maybe) put off the inevitable for another four years?
I know that under Romney we'll have not just avowedly genocidal termination of Medicare, Medicaid (and most likely Social Security), but the imposition of JesuNazi theocracy, with faith-based organizations like the Ku Klux Klan -- known throughout the South as "the Saturday Night Men's Bible Study Class" -- functioning as the Christian equivalent of Islamic morality police. I believe -- I hope -- under Obama things won't be quite so bad.
The transformation of capitalism into fascism and finally into some form of Nazism is inevitable -- that is what is happening now, essentially as Marx and Engels predicted 164 years ago. But if the final transition can be delayed another four years, maybe -- because I'm 72 years old and not in the best of health -- I'll be dead by the time the for-profit prison corporations venture into the extermination business.
That's my one remaining hope, and that's why I'm voting for Obama -- to delay, as long as I can, what I now recognize as inevitable.
It means something. I understand the disappointment and disillusionment. I cannot understand the president buying into the "I can kill anyone." I don't understand NDAA and a lot forays into our constitutional rights.
But the Romney/Ryan ticket would, if it could, make abortion almost completely unavailable except for "forcible," rape--oh, wait, not even that. It wouldn't try to bring women's wages up to equal men's--he did bring about and sign the Lily Ledbetter act. I don't think he isst going to renege on Social Security and Medicare, but we may have to keep our feet on his neck to make sure he doesn't. He did get us out the Iraq and is ending the Afghanistan war. He got a somewhat weak Wall Streeet reform bill passed--that repubs are still trying to defeat and whittle away at. He got rid of Don't Ask don't tell and came out in favor of same-sex marriage.
He lowered taxes on ordinary people, although it was slight and didn't amount to a lot for individurrals, and most people were unaware, but over a year it added up. He raised America's image and standing abroad and has conducted a foreign policy based on diplomacy, sanctions, etc., instead of bombs and guns. He's way far from perfefct but R/R know nothing about foreign policy and from Romney's stumbling overseas venture, I'd be afraid of what he might do.
I am not particularly proud of killing Omar bin Laden. He could easily have been captured and we could have gotten information from him. I suspect this administration also ordered Saddam Hussein killed immediately because he knew about all the skeletons going at least as far back as Bush 1.
There's more, but he is disappointing, disillusioning, sometimes lies, etc. etc., but his stated values and policies put us in the right direction, and I am voting for him. The alternative (not Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson) of R/R is really too awful to contemplate, especially if they get a strong repub congress.
There's more, but you can look it up.
When you think about it, it really is like history is repeating itself - returning to what it's been for so much of human history. Kings and queens and lords, and a whole lot of peasants, with kings and queens having more than any human could ever possibly need in a lifetime, all at the expense of the peasants. Kind of like America's version of monarchies.
And the sad part is that they manage to get tens of millions of people to vote against their own interests by playing on the resentment that some of their hard earn money that is taken from them in taxes might go to some imaginary welfare queen or king out there who doesn't want to work and just wants to live off them. I've received dog whistle emails about just that from conservative friends since Obama got elected.
One of my favorite signs from Madison, WI was "A middle class worker voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders". Can't sum it up any better than that.
It's like the movie the Matrix. That's exactly what the conservative, corporate owned media outlets have created in this country. When people blog against Obama, I keep thinking of what Barney Frank once said to a ranting woman. "What planet do you spend most of your time on?" But as a mental health care professional, I also find it rather scary. Maybe that's the job area that will grow and bring us out of this economic mess - the mental health care workers. Lord knows they're needed.
i was just thinking about it all and how in 4 years none of them have really done anything to help me and mine! sky rocket college costs while fat cat administrators get raises? $ being squandered on idiodic municiple projects while teachers take the shaft and the kids get dumbed down even more? the banks still sticking to the people and the gov doing absolutely nothing for those of us who actually keep it a float! seriously i am disgusted with all the hot air and smoke blowin! i want to hear obama say he is going to..."i will put through an executive order today allowing for those hard working middle class and working class folks to be able to tap thier retirement accounts without penalty and pay off thier mortgages so they don't have to be prisoners to the banks anymore so they can get back to being able to afford to put mac and cheese on the table.."in the meantime my money is still tied to rules and regs that i have little control over as i worry about it everyday and wonder who the next dolt is that is going to rip me off!!! its all BS but tragically? i will still go out and vote, trying to convince myself it actually means something. Sad....
Everyone talks about Romney calling for letting Detroit go bankrupt, but I don’t think anyone has really pointed out just how selfish what he was suggesting actually was, and how much it reflects one more example of the thinking he lived by, and prospered by at Bain Capital.
If companies go bankrupt, it will nullify union contracts. It would eliminate legacy costs like pensions and health insurance benefits for tens of thousands of former employees. Those holding stock would want to unload it quickly before the price of it free fell.
The stock of those companies would bottom out and be worthless. BUT, people like Romney would swoop in and buy up that stock at bargain basement sale prices, knowing full well that the auto companies would be back in business sometime soon, hire people at much lower wages, with much less benefits, and with all the shed costs, the company would be seen as highly profitable for investors, and the stock would soar and those Romney types would makes millions. All at the expense of perhaps millions of middle class union workers.
Likewise, Romney suggested in a Las Vegas interview that we should let the foreclosure process play out. Sure, so that people like him, or at least those managing his blind trusts, could buy up foreclosed properties for pennies or dimes on the dollar, and make huge profits when the housing market returns someday.
So my point is, these examples people often cite about Romney speak a lot more about him, and people like him, when you play the scenarios out.
I can't vote for someone who has treated Bradley Manning like Obama has, or someone who has usurped the right to kill anyone he decides to without due process, or someone who uses drone warfare, or someone who brags about killing Ben Laden when he could have easily captured him and brought him to trial so that perhaps the truth of what happened on 911 could come out, or some one who goes along with the FEMA camps being prepared for protesters, or someone who is not fighting to stop the tar sand oil from flowing through our country and who says all the options for our energy needs when it is obvious that that will alter our planet to the extent that it may compromise our grand children's ability to survive. Yes, he is the lesser of too evils, but this time I see no hope in voting for him.
I will vote for Jill Stein, who speaks for our survival, both physically and morally.
2012 is the last chance for republicans from here on out. The demographics have turned against them, and by 2016 no amount of money will get them elected. So its all in this time around - win at all costs. Expect more big money than even imagined in negative ads, false ads, lies and innuendo.
And if the republicans do win, expect a scorched earth administration stacking the supreme court, taking away personal liberties, eliminating taxes, outlawing abortion,abolishing regulation, etc. The only good news is that they will be out for good in 2016 and after 10-12 years progressives may be able to clean up the mess and return to normalcy.
If dems win, its more of the same nothing happening for four years. But when demographics catch up - it will be full Democratic from here on out.
Then with some luck and a leader with balls, money may even be eliminated from politics and we may return to democracy. I only hope it happens in my lifetime.
Pop up the S&P-500 or any other measure of the economy, charted over the last 5-years; focus on Q4-2008.. ANYTHING is possible and the tools are in place to pull the plug, if they find it advantageous or necessary. Watch very closely for big-money selling-short.
"But if we sit out this election, then the oligarchs will only tighten their grip on power in America. That’s what’s at stake"
If we fail to shake up the good old boy, corrupt two-party system, then the "oligarchs will continue to tighten their grip on power in America". If we elect Jill Stein..it would send an acute sign to those in power that their money bought them nothing and they can't continue to get away with fooling the people all the time with their rigged system. They would have to change their superior attitude and start to compromise...in the very least.
And in the very best...if Jill Stein does turn out to be America's savior and appoints all good and strong people to her cabinet...investigators and prosecutors to bring to justice all of those war criminals and economic criminals..and restore America to a place where we can again feel proud and safe again....then we will have saved America by voting for Jill Stein! We really have no other choice!
I'd rather have Jill Stein appointing Supreme Court Justices than either Romney or Obama.
"But the President’s speech last night revealed that there are still enormous differences between himself and Mitt Romney – differences that will affect the lives of tens of millions of Americans."
Obama's speeches, when he campaigned before his first election, "revealed enormous differences" as well but his bark turned into a whimper after he was elected. He was voted in by the people because they were convinced that Obama was seriously going to change things. But Obama just kept giving in to the Republicans and I think that was meant to be all along. He sold us hope but gave us more of Bush.
Actions! Not more empty prattle!
Are you going to believe all of the sweet nothings that Obama tells you or are you going to believe what he actually did or didn't do during the last 4 years?
Are you going to be cowed into voting for Obama again because the alleged alternative, Romney, is just too horrible to imagine? Or are you going to take a chance that the majority of voters will, this time, break their chains and vote outside of the corrupt two party system. Think of how much elation will come over everyone if they finally were able to make a masterful statement that "we will not be held prisoners anymore by the corrupt two party system", and leave the jaws of the ruling elite and their political puppets wide open in shock and amazement that the people actually fought back. Vote for Jill Stein!
" You know, it’s easy to resign into cynicism and attack both parties as tools of the corporate elite."
It's easy because it's the truth...they ARE both tools of the corporate elite! Sure, there are some differences...enough, perhaps to convince some Democrats..that Obama is the lesser of two evils. Most should realize, by now, if they haven't been swayed back into stupidity and forgetfulness by all of this campaign rhetoric, that Obama sounded much the same before he was elected the first time. You see...that's the real trick in all of this...they have you in a trap of voting for one of THEIR guys...Romney or Obama. Romney is plan A and Obama plan B. Plan A, in order to move quickly to screw us...or, if the people are getting too upset...Plan B, to feed the simpletons hope that they really should know better to believe in.
But, alas, America is full of superstitious simpletons who believe in ghosts and demons and devils and gods. And many of them are easy to fool into voting for Republicans...or, fake Democrats. Which one do you think Obama is? With the ruling elite...it's heads they win and tails you lose. Let's break that chain and vote for the Greens..vote for Jill Stein.
"President Obama took the stage at the DNC on Thursday night and instead of talking about change – he talked about choice."
Sure, Obama needed to change the subject..since he failed on "change you can believe in"...or was that "hope you can believe in"? Choice? what choices do we really have here? You can choose to opt out of the Obama Care but you will be fined by the government. You can choose either Obama or Romney and you will get the same rapacious policies that the 1% have gotten away with.
America has turned into a relatively lawless wild west of gunslingers and the few that are toting M16s against our pea shooters (you gave all your guns away, remember?)....are controlling us all.
The only real CHOICE is to vote for Jill Stein not tweedle dee or tweedle dummer! Jill Stein may be our only chance to keep this empire from bursting into violence...things could get really, really bad. And I am certainly not looking forward to it!
Funny! I thought religious people were trying to argue that atheism is a religion. So by those standards, Jefferson's words "of religion" could apply to atheists as well. And atheism would be just as protected as any other religion. Of course, most atheists don't consider themselves to be a religion. But then there are millions of believers in God, and other ridiculous things, who don't consider themselves to be of a religion either...choosing to distance themselves from the organized, institutional superstitions so that they can practice their own anti-dictatorial ones. At least they would never have to worry about another Jim Jones convincing you to drink the cool aid.
Fantastic! If everyone stops being so afraid to take a chance and breaks free of the chains that this corrupt two party system, run by the ruling elite, has rigged against us, we might get Jill Stein elected.
The pig-headed 1% are just not going to back down at all unless they are afraid that they could lose this time. And if Romney or Obama wins..the ruling elite will not lose anything.
They started this war against the working men and women and retirees a long time ago and our very struggle for survival is now at stake. We have to fight back one way or the other or perish like whimpering, cowardly children.
One way is to radically change the status quo by booting out the entrenched good old boy two party system by electing lots of Green party members to the Presidency and to Congress. What we need is our own Party of NO! No more rapacious pillaging of the 99%. If we had a President and Congress that would appoint real experts in the economy and in law enforcement, real prosecutors that will go after those wealthy criminals and take away all their ill-gotten gains and throw them into prison for a long time, then we could turn this country around to bring it out of the hands of the criminals and out of the abyss of despair.
The other way is much, much scarier....massive riots in the streets, boycotts, and obstruction in any way we can.
Lets try Jill Stein first so we won't have to do the other!
And if Jill Stein turns out to be the wimp and liar that Obama was then we may have to do the later anyway.
One of the first signs that Obama was a wimp and a liar was when he said, in response to the question about the war criminal Bush regime, was something like "Let's not dwell on the past and look to the future!"
Obama had enough power, along with a Congress during those first few months, to really make a difference but he failed. He then went on to "Rodney King" his way through his first administration.
The differences obama cited between the democratic and republican party are alleged differences, and yea there may be technical differences between the parties. But there is no difference in substance between the two parties. Both will crap on the 99% in their craven pursuit to serve the 99%. They'll just say different things and go about it differently.
I'm voting for Jill Stein.
When a country faces very tough times at home and abroad, strong leadership is what Is needed. This country is paralyzed with uncertainty, where is Obama? The fiscal cliff at the end of the year, where is Obama? It is obvious that we have a whining little child that has no idea how to be strong and press through the difficulties. We desperately need a change of leadership. Fire this incompetent fool in November.
The bigger question is whether the will of the people can beat the money and the dirty tricks, such as voting IDs and voting manipulation. Another is voter turn out. I think the Dems made a good case, and I was happy to see them confront voter suppression, and confront a number of GOP lies. Other factors..even some republicans are disgusted with the Tea party nonsense that's getting away from real representation. Where will Ron Paul come into this? Can it split the republican vote enough to make a difference?
Unemployment seems to be the big issue here. I think it's being reported wrong. I don't want to know how bad employment is compared to when it was at it's best. But rather, I want to know how much better employment is compared to when it was at it's worst.
Freedom of religion not from religion! Even what you read from Jefferson was to keep government from controlling religoin. Please do more research
I am voting for Jill Stein for President of the Green Party, as well. If anyone wants to check out her presidential platform you can see it at this following link. http://www.jillstein.org/ The reason I am voting for Jill Stein is because I am sick and tired of the lies we are told from both the Republicans and the Democrats. I am not going to fall for the politics of fear, either. The masses will stay in lock step because of the brain washing they receive from the capitlist 1% controlled media. My vote may be a throw away vote but from what I have seen from the 99% marching, protesting, and being brutally beaten up by the police, the least I can do is try to vote for the masses by voting for Jill Stein for President of the Green Party.
Then I watched that DNC thing headed by the Mayor of LA..that just turned my stomach. What a pitiful spectacle of blatant Kangaroo court voting. The Yes votes definitely did NOT out-do the No votes...3 times...and that snot-nosed Mayor practically wet his diapers. And then took the chicken way out and ruled in favor of the Yes votes. Do we have a democracy or a theocracy in America...it seems like more of a theocracy than anything else...except a plutocracy...or a corporatocracy. It's certainly not a democracy!
It's been a great Convention, and I've learned that President Obama has done way more than what hea been conveyed to us over 4-years (Biden's speach was insightfull). I do believe now more than ever that Obama is the special person for the job. And yet that is ALSO because the Rabid-Right is so utterly terrible AND they have blocked EVERY reform they could.
However there is the huge middle part of the population with NO access to any form of "progressive" radio (other than NPR). After several decades of incessant indoctrination by the rabid-right-radio and similar TV -- I fear for our country -- no matter what we do in our neighborhoods. And, while I'm more Democrat than ever before (after seeing some of both Conventions) -- it's inexcusible Democrats' ineptness in not defusing the Citizen's United mega-money corruption of our system.
(Once again the two: "Yes/NO" options here, when annotated, require adding comments and either "Both" or "None of the above.")
Good job! Couldn't agree more...except I doubt I will vote for Obama again. I'll vote for Jill Stein even if it may mean that Obama will lose to Romney. I think we are doomed no matter which way it goes...unless the Republicans and Democrats are made to pay for their crimes by putting a Green in the Presidency....and fill Congress with Greens.
It would be a real eye-opening shocker to the good ole' boy two party system...and all those rich people who will have wasted all of that money on their two candidates. And if a Stein Presidency doesn't sell us out like Obama did it may even keep people from rioting in the streets. No one wants to see rioting happen.
I thought Elizabeth Warren's speech was very good but, of course, I differ with her on supporting the guy who could do nothing but ape Rodney King..."CCCCan't we all jjjjust get along?".
We voted for Obama the first time because he convinced us that he would really change things..little did we know then that the ruling elite knew all along that Obama would represent them instead...as they planned.
McCain/Palin was a joke that no one took seriously...same for Romney/Ryan...they are the scare tactic that will frighten Democrats to go out and vote for Obama instead of Greens. The worse thing that could happen to the ruling elite, other than rioting in the streets, would be to buck the system and put a non-Demotard or non-Republitard into high positions of power in this government.
Obama merely delayed the inevitable and will likely delay it some more if reelected...but not for much beyond that. And, of course, if Romney wins the Presidency, the inevitable will occur even sooner. The ruling elite wants Romney but not if they think the people will riot in the streets like in Egypt.
Make no mistake: I will vote, I will vote for Obama, and I will do so even knowing that neither Obama nor Romney will so much as lift a finger to better the lot of the 99 Percent.
But that is not the point. The point is that many of the people who voted for Obama in 2008 did not vote (or voted against the Democrats) in 2010, and many more will do likewise in November. Why? Because Obama and his administration spent the last four years proving "change we can believe in" to have been the most brazen Big Lie ever inflicted on the U.S. electorate.
Apropos Citizens United, that was -- exactly as so many commentators have implied -- the final nail in the coffin of the U.S. experiment in constitutional democracy. Even if the Democrats were to capture the presidency and both houses of Congress, the Republican minority in the Senate will obstruct any Supreme Court nominee who might be inclined to revisit the decision. The only way to reverse Citizens United is via a constitutional amendment, which the combination of corporate money, Madison Avenue cunning and Moron Nation submissiveness makes utterly impossible.
As far as women's rights are concerned, the banishment of abortion providers now makes abortion effectively illegal in 85 percent of the nation's counties -- each a jurisdiction where the JesuNazi drive toward zero-tolerance theocracy has already achieved one of its primary goals. Meanwhile the Democrats' support for free trade -- NAFTA, GATT, WTO, the treaties now under negotiation -- imposes a de facto ban not just on abortion but on all female sexual freedom. This is because the job loss imposed by free trade is also the total loss of health insurance, which for women is the total loss of reproductive care and therefore the total repeal of reproductive choice and all women's rights based theron.
Here of course is the real reason for the campaign to shut down Planned Parenthood. It provided reproductive care to women who had been robbed of their health insurance by free-trade job thieves. But with Planned Parenthood gone, no such care is available, and the biological reality -- the awful choice between chastity or pregnancy -- is (accurately) calculated by the JesuNazis to force women back into total submission to patriarchal authority.
Hence rather than berate me about "common sense," I respectfully suggest you transcend our national tendency for PollyAnna denial and accept just how truly horrid things are. It won't make you any happier, but it might put you in a better position to seek rational -- that is, "common sense" -- solutions.