Next US President?

[Egeides]

About this saint/bad-guy opposition which brings to exaggerate all claims...

Why, is there a "unity party"? Obama seems to wish to incarnate this. McCain is also said to wish to come back to unity. But both groups have advantage in distinguishing themselves within their dualist relation.

That's why many promote a diversity of parties instead. But, on the other hand, there's this risky "from chaos comes [whatever] order" part to it.

[Edric O]

This is just one of the forums I visit, and I've come to see many of the others I do are abundant with extreme lefties that spew a lot of BS about McCain and now Palin and praise Obama as a saint. So I'm learning from the best on how to make pointless accusations. Luckily I don't post here much so I'll keep it to a minimum.

Yeah, there are a lot of stupid people on my side. And there are a lot of stupid people on your side. That doesn't mean we should stoop to their level.

However, I don't consider liberals to be part of "my side." My side is the side of socialism, and liberalism is a capitalist ideology. Socialism is not some kind of radical version of liberalism. It is a different ideology with different values, different principles, and different goals. Liberals are, at best, mistaken people with good intentions. And I'm not even convinced that Obama has good intentions - but in any case his political views are mistaken, and he is, at best, the lesser evil in this election.

Anyone who actually agrees with all of Obama's political views and projects - rather than just considering them less bad than McCain's - is not a socialist and not on "my side." As for Obama's rabid fanboys, I want nothing to do with them in any shape or form (but I do hope that Obama wins so they can see all their illusions crash and burn).

So if you see someone accusing Obama and his fanclub of being "socialists" or "Marxists", please tell them that the real socialists really don't want to be associated with those crazy liberals. ;)

[jeff2429]

That doesn't mean we should stoop to their level.

Most here seem to be able to debate in a civil manner.  If only that could be said for the rest of the internet. ::)

I didn't see his speech so I have no idea. I was asking more of a general question. When do they start with specific policies and promises?

Neither candidates speech really divulged any specifics. Just the same gibberish that would get the crowd in an uproar.  Seems it will come down to the debates before we find out anything major on their policies or if they will just claim the questions are above their pay grade. *cough* Obama *cough*

[Egeides]

I don't think they need to bring out the specifics. Most people might not be asking for specifics either, or for more and more details. It's not just gibberish that gets a crowd in an uproar. Whatever weaknesses he might have had, Cicero wasn't only gibberish.

But I doubt people checked him in the specifics too. All this rhetoric seems more about trusting the guy and his capacity to remain internally coherent. I guess the bet is that someone who can be trusted will remain faithful to his rhetoric and people. Not sure it'll work fully, but that's rhetorics and politics.

[Anathema]

During McCains speech last night he had a background that was supposed to be the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But instead the image they put up was of Walter Reed Middle School in Hollywood California.

The Walter Reed gaffe

The republican campaign really sucks.

here's a pic of it.

Uhhh....

Anyone who travels as much as Obama does can get confused about where they are on any given night, and Obama is no exception. He mistakenly said he had watched the speech at the home of a St. Louis family

[Andrew]

Yes I remember when Obama did that. But in his defence they are in a different city every day. And his daughter corrected him anyway.

The RNC was planned in advance and how did they not get the proper location? It wasn't an on the spot remark, it was planned in advance. Did they just type it into google images and take what shows up? Ok, it's wasn't intentional but pretty sloppy work for the people who put the presentation together.

The guy who remarked about the 9/11 video at the convention was removed from his political commentator position.

[Anathema]

Mandatory reading ;)

[Andrew]

Mandatory reading ;)

They left out the picture of her in a bikini holding an "ak47" which is false. It is photoshopped and the gun isn't even an ak47. But that didn't stop mainstream media from reporting it.

[Edric O]

Relatively speaking, most democrats are left leaning. Centrists would mean that you agree more or less with the level of taxation and the amount of government spending of your country. Democrats generally want to expand both, though there are also so-called "fiscally responsible" democrats, i.e. Bill Clinton and Richardson. Bush has been running a disastrous "borrow and spend" program but a lot of republicans disagree with them (McCain opposed Bush' tax cuts originally on the grounds that he didn't think Bush would match it with budget cuts)

I prefer to judge political parties and candidates by international standards rather than by the standards of their own domestic politics, because if you judge them all by domestic standards then you can't compare politicians from different countries (one country's relative left-winger can be another country's relative right-winger and vice versa). Obama is left-wing in America, but would be considered right-wing in the Netherlands. McCain is right-wing in America, but would be considered left-wing in Hong Kong.

Now, since I am a communist, on economic issues I am always hard left, and I will always support the most left-wing groups in any country. But on issues of personal freedom and civil liberties, I am a centrist, so my views would count as left-wing in the United States but right-wing in the Netherlands.

A bit of both. No regulations or taxes at all would be ridiculous because companies use the nations infrastructure and ought to pay for it, and stockholders of limited liability companies are never liable beyond what they've paid for their shares so they shouldn't whine when the economy is regulated to ensure the long term health of the system. But when that's "done" I don't think that we should begrudge people the fruits of setting up a succesful company wich will ultimately benefit the entire economy with jobs and new products.

The idea that companies deserve credit for "creating jobs" is very strange - it's like saying you deserve credit for going shopping. After all, a job is a relationship in which a company demands something (labour power) and people offer to supply the company with it, in exchange for a wage. A job is not something your employer gives you - it's something your employer demands from you.

So no, I don't feel particularly inclined to congratulate companies for "creating jobs." Anyone with enough money can create jobs - including the government. The hard part is actually taking the job and doing the work. The workers employed to do a certain job are the ones creating wealth, and they deserve the credit for it. So instead of cutting taxes on companies, it is better to improve and expand social services for workers, in order to have a healthy, educated workforce that will benefit the entire economy with increased productivity and new products. And since the purpose of the economy is to increase general happiness, not to make money for its own sake, the government should also ensure that people enjoy job security, unemployment benefits, and reliable old age pensions.

All of this needs to be paid for through taxes, of course, but so what? It is worth the cost. The happiness of the many is more important than the pleasure of the wealthy few.

And that is the case for social democracy, or the typical mainstream argument against economic liberalism. I like to use it because it is based on mostly liberal premises, though of course I prefer socialism and the socialist argument, which is stronger and basically comes down to the question, why do we need to have private business and extreme inequalities of wealth in the first place? Doesn't justice demand that people should be rewarded in proportion to their work and effort, which is clearly not the case under capitalism?

Not that the current tax levels taken as a whole are particulary horrid in the US, but Obama wants to raise them to absurd levels.

No he doesn't - not that I've heard of, anyway. He wants to keep most taxes at their current levels, cut some taxes on the middle and lower income earners, and raise some taxes on the wealthy. At least that's what he says he'll do. I doubt he will actually honour his promises, because he needs to raise taxes in order to pay off Bush's debt, and the wealthy will use the full force of their lobbying machine to make sure they don't have to carry any extra burden.

Obama's also a closet protectionist, he's laying off the anti-NAFTA rethoric right now so he can pander to the centrist voters but when he's sworn in we'll see the same Obama we saw during the primaries.

NAFTA is not the EU. It promotes free movement of capital across borders, but it does not allow free movement of labour. And that's the reason I oppose NAFTA and all free trade agreements like it: They greatly increase capital mobility while keeping labour immobile. They allow companies to threaten to move to a different country if they don't get what they want, but workers are not allowed to do the same thing.

I'll start supporting free trade agreements when I start seeing the first multinational trade unions with the power to bargain on an equal footing with multinational corporations.

[Sneakgab]

Maybe Americans should have impeached Bush before he wasted an absurd amount of money.  :P.

Regardless of tax and spending changes Americans will feel the pinch somewhere at sometime.

Of course, speaking about impeachment seems to be to ''radical'' for most. Well, I guess those kinds of fools who refuse anything to new and/or unusual are/will be paying for their foolishness. Unless of course they're rich :P

I also get annoyed when people act like companies ''creating jobs' is the greatest charity work...

Company: Hey, you over there, I am offering you the once in a lifetime opportunity of working for less than you're work is worth in order to profit mine!

...yay...

Would corps ever do this if they didn't profit from it? judging from what I've seen (such as opting for slightly more profitable methods despite large detriment to the ecology...) I'd say not.

Of course, somebody working for less than they deserve is better than having nothing because that somebody wasn't ''lucky'' enough to be in a scenario where somebody else could benefit by exploiting him.

Sometimes I get the feeling that companies for some reason have been raised to some kind of pedestal of morality and ''goodness'' which seems utterly absurd on any level no matter how you look at it. Even capitalists should be able to agree on that (that is, that corps are NOT GOOD guys even if they aren't necessarily BAD guys.)

[Anathema]

The idea that companies deserve credit for "creating jobs" is very strange - it's like saying you deserve credit for going shopping. After all, a job is a relationship in which a company demands something (labour power) and people offer to supply the company with it, in exchange for a wage. A job is not something your employer gives you - it's something your employer demands from you.

A job is a two-way street where the employer pays and the worker, well, works. For workers jobs are necessary to earn themselves enough money to earn a (comfortable) living. They're necessary (but not by themselves sufficient) for companies both small and large to deploy activities.

Now, some social democrats will always support measures against employers, taxes or otherwise, on the grounds that they earn more money than the workers. What these people refuse to acknowledge or even hear from others is that such measures can discourage economic activity and therefore result in a net loss of jobs.

The workers employed to do a certain job are the ones creating wealth' date=' and they deserve the credit for it.[/color']

It's not possible for me to suddenly decide that I'm going to earn money for myself by building cars. Nor would it be possible for a large group of people. It requires a large amount of machinery and international production chains. Labour is a prerequisite for production, not the one source of production.

And that is the case for social democracy' date=' or the typical mainstream argument against economic liberalism. I like to use it because it is based on mostly liberal premises, though of course I prefer socialism and the socialist argument, which is stronger and basically comes down to the question, why do we need to have private business and extreme inequalities of wealth in the first place? Doesn't justice demand that people should be rewarded in proportion to their work and effort, which is clearly not the case under capitalism?[/color']

Would you accept that people with rare skills, either personal traits or academic degrees wich few people are intellectually capable of attaining, deserve to be paid more than uneducated workers?

NAFTA is not the EU. It promotes free movement of capital across borders' date=' but it does not allow free movement of labour. And that's the reason I oppose NAFTA and all free trade agreements like it: They greatly increase capital mobility while keeping labour immobile. They allow companies to threaten to move to a different country if they don't get what they want, but workers are not allowed to do the same thing.

I'll start supporting free trade agreements when I start seeing the first multinational trade unions with the power to bargain on an equal footing with multinational corporations.[/color']

Your gripe with NAFTA seems to be that it can (potentially) harm the interests of Mexican workers? I'm not that knowledgable about it, but from what I know this isn't the case. Obama's rethoric is purely protectionist in order and doesn't distinguish Canadian and Mexican competition. He's deliberately vague about it and doesn't talk about it at the moment, but I clearly remember him saying that he'll try to negotiate the treaty to benefit American workers specifically.

[Andrew]

Democrat Compares Obama to Jesus, Palin to Pontius Pilate on House Floor

Fun election.

Do they actually do any work in congress?

Palin Uses Personal E-mail Accounts And Claims Executive Privilege

Won't release 1100 emails. Although I think they were leaked in a pdf file.

More liberal hate?

[Digital Guerrilla]

The following is an article about Sarah Palin you can read it and decide for yourself. I am not personally surprised by the accusations not because I do not like Sarah Palin but because I know how it is in Alaska.

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper):Palin is "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean" 

[Andrew]

Palins yahoo email account was "hacked" (password guessed?) and part of her inbox was put up on wikileaks.

wikileaks website is down because of this. Apparently anonymous (aka 4chan) hacked the email, but we'll never know unless the FBI figure it out. Bunch of crazy people. hope Gob has a plan if they decide to invade fed2k at some point.

http://cryptome.org/

is a mirror with the documents.

Apparently her government email and her yahoo email account have been destroyed to delete all her emails. This was not done by the hacker. According to the document.

Yahoo mail looks really terrible.

[Edric O]

A job is a two-way street where the employer pays and the worker, well, works. For workers jobs are necessary to earn themselves enough money to earn a (comfortable) living. They're necessary (but not by themselves sufficient) for companies both small and large to deploy activities.

True, but your job is far more necessary to you than it is to your employer. Unless you work for a very small business, your employer will not suffer very much if you quit; but you will suffer much more if you get fired. Therefore, your employer has far more power over you than you have over him.

And my previous point stands: A job is a relationship in which the employer represents demand and the worker represents supply. The employer demands work; the worker supplies it. Just like in a supermarket, the customer demands cheese (for example) and the supermarket supplies it. To say that employers "create jobs" is as stupid as to say that I "create cheese" when I go to the supermarket to buy cheese.

Now, some social democrats will always support measures against employers, taxes or otherwise, on the grounds that they earn more money than the workers. What these people refuse to acknowledge or even hear from others is that such measures can discourage economic activity and therefore result in a net loss of jobs.

There are two answers to this, the social democratic answer and the socialist/communist answer. Naturally, I support the socialist/communist answer - but I will give both:

Social democratic answer: So what? Economic activity is not good for its own sake, it's only good to the extent that it benefits people. It is possible to have an economic policy that will discourage economic activity and still end up benefitting the majority of people (for example, if the total benefit to the majority is smaller than the loss to the rich minority). Such a policy is a good policy. It's better to have 10% unemployment and a decent standard of living for everyone (including the unemployed), than 3% unemployment and a low standard of living for poor people, with long working hours, crappy jobs, no vacations, and expensive health care.

Socialist/communist answer: What you are saying is that we are at the mercy of employers - at the mercy of corporations - and that we must appease them with low taxes, low regulations and other sacrifices, in order to keep them happy so that they will continue to give us the scraps from their table. You sound like you're telling a slave to work hard for his master because the master provides him with food, and if he doesn't work hard enough he might not get food. That is a disgusting, cowardly, shameful suggestion. We refuse to be slaves. We refuse to appease our masters. We owe them nothing; they owe us everything. Yes, of course our employers have power over us. But the proper response to people who have power over you is not to bow and obey; it is to revolt and take their power away from them. The employers threaten to take our jobs away? Fine! We will nationalize their companies and "create" our own jobs!

It's not possible for me to suddenly decide that I'm going to earn money for myself by building cars. Nor would it be possible for a large group of people. It requires a large amount of machinery and international production chains. Labour is a prerequisite for production, not the one source of production.

You are right, of course. But why is that the case? Why can't you - or even a large group of people - suddenly decide that you want to earn money by building cars, and do it? Because you don't own all that machinery and those production chains. Because they are all someone else's private property.

So yes, what you say is true, but this is a condition caused by capitalism (or to be more exact, by the existence of private property over the means of production). But we could replace capitalism with a system where, for example, any group of people could walk into a car factory and start making cars, subject only to some kind of arbitration procedure if two groups want to use the same factory.

Would you accept that people with rare skills, either personal traits or academic degrees wich few people are intellectually capable of attaining, deserve to be paid more than uneducated workers?

Absolutely not. Why should you deserve to be paid more for a talent that you were born with? You didn't choose to be born with it. You didn't make an effort to be born with it. You do not deserve any special treatment for having it.

As for superior education, yes I agree that you should be compensated for the work and effort you put into educating yourself. But I do not believe this should come in the form of higher wages after you finish your education; I believe it should come in the form of regular wages while you are working on your education. In other words, I believe students should be paid for studying, just as if they were working in a regular job, but I don't think they deserve higher wages after they are done with their studies.

Your gripe with NAFTA seems to be that it can (potentially) harm the interests of Mexican workers? I'm not that knowledgable about it, but from what I know this isn't the case. Obama's rethoric is purely protectionist in order and doesn't distinguish Canadian and Mexican competition. He's deliberately vague about it and doesn't talk about it at the moment, but I clearly remember him saying that he'll try to negotiate the treaty to benefit American workers specifically.

NAFTA can harm all workers, though Mexican workers probably receive the greatest part of that harm. I said that NAFTA harms workers by keeping labour immobile while making capital mobile. This doesn't only mean that Mexican workers are prevented from finding better jobs in the US while American companies are free to exploit lower-paid workers in Mexico. It also means that American and Mexican workers are forced to compete. They cannot join together in a single union.

Of course Obama is probably a protectionist and doesn't care about any of this - but I don't support Obama.

[Andrew]

Internal Government Document Contradicts Sarah Palin and Campaign

More proof that she lied?

[Caid Ivik]

Internal Government Document Contradicts Sarah Palin and Campaign

More proof that she lied?

Does it matter? Republicans are ruling for eight years and proven themselves untrustworthy many times.

[Andrew]

Loan titans paid McCain adviser nearly $2 million

Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

It's funny because McCain was part of Keating Five which basically caused the financial crisis in the 1980s.

I believe McCain will be best to handle this current financial crisis, because he and his team have more experience on how to screw up financials.

[Egeides]

Senator John McCain's campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Get money, you get money to make laws stopping limits on your money. Not all rich people act on this, but it's some kind of eternal problem I guess. It's going to pop up again unless some decide to displease seriously by blocking richer ones from "financial profiteering" and overall population's ideas of "quick buck lifestyle".

Whatever which government fixes the crisis for right now, I think it'll pop back up. From what I saw Andrew, you seem to see government officials' acts in terms of scandals, etc., from a negative eye. But quite a few of them probably know all that and just don't find better despite years of experience on their field.

[Anathema]

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2008/09/19/palin_email_hack.html

They caught the guy who hacked Palin's e-mail. It's the son of some democrat legislator.

[Edric O]

Yes he can!

[Andrew]

McCain suspends campaign, cancels debate with Obama

Nice. Basically trying to prevent democracy. Wants to stop all campaigning to "focus on the economy".

I doubt Obama has the balls to call McCain on his bullshit and tell him he will be at the debate. Of course even if Obama wanted to do this the media would turn on him for being "unpatriotic".

EDIT:

Obama wants to continue with campaign and debate.

Bush is also addressing the nation tonight. Probably say a bunch of bullshit as to why they need $700 billion to give to failed corporations.

Gee maybe if there was more regulation that prevented such corporations from getting so large this might not have been a problem.

EDIT:

What did McCain and Bush do during the last national crisis?

After Hurricane Katrina this is what they did:

EDIT:

David Letterman Reacts to John McCain Suspending Campaign

McCain cancels interview with letterman because he is racing to get to Washington to fix the crisis. Then McCain shows up on another interview during letterman episode. 9 min video. Letterman makes some good points. Campaign should not have been suspended. Sarah Palin should have kept campaigning in his place. But they rarely let her out.

[jeff2429]

OBAMA'S CHICAGO Report Card

Body count:

In the last six months 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago,

221 killed in Iraq.

Senators Barrack Obama, Dick Durbin, Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr., Gov. Rod Blogojevich, House leader Mike Madigan, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, Mayor Richard Daley.....our leadership in Illinois.....all Democrats.

Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago.

Of course they're all blaming each other. Can't blame Republicans, there aren't any!

State pension fund $44 Billion in debt, worst in country.

Cook County (Chicago) sales tax 10.5% highest in country. (Look'em up if you want).

Chicago school system one of the worst in country.

This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois.

He's gonna 'fix' Washington politics?

To bad you'll never hear about this in the media.

[jeff2429]

McCain suspends campaign, cancels debate with Obama

Nice. Basically trying to prevent democracy. Wants to stop all campaigning to "focus on the economy".

I doubt Obama has the balls to call McCain on his bullshit and tell him he will be at the debate. Of course even if Obama wanted to do this the media would turn on him for being "unpatriotic".

McCain is doing what he should do, go back to Washington to do the job his constituents hired him to do in the first place. You're right, Obama doesn't have the balls, to make a bold move like this.  All that idiot can do is vote present.

[Anathema]

I love Biden.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Biden_garbles_Depression_history.html?showall

Joe Biden's denunciation of his own campaign's ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.

He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed," Biden told Couric. "He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

As Reason's Jesse Walker footnotes it: "And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, 'Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?'"

Possibly the greatest comedian evar  :D