posted April 21, 2016 04:48 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
Enlightened Americans?

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^Sure, why not! Isn't the US the country of Emerson and Thoreau?

But when you google the words "enlightened Americans", pics like this come up:

posted April 21, 2016 07:59 AM            

I meant, regarding this comment: "There is no way enlightened Americans will let her be the leader of our country."

This from a girl who is voting for Trump?

I feel like his popularity is based mostly on hate and bigotry.

Are you sick of Mexicans????

ME, TOO!

Are you sick of Muslims????

ME, TOO!

Are you sick of ugly women???

ME, TOO!

posted April 21, 2016 08:58 AM            

Will refrain from commenting on your candidates and election campaign details, as it's hard to really grasp what's going on there from overseas, and in all honesty the only thing that matters to us over here is US foreign politics anyway, which is however probably not the first priority for US citizens when trying to make a choice (at least foreign affairs hardly matter that much in most countries' elections, which are typically way more influenced by domestic issues.) We have our fair share of bogeyman-like politicians in Europe as well; politics in general seems to draw these types like dung draws flies.

posted April 21, 2016 11:31 AM            

I don't have tv reception or social media, so I avoid most of the election drama.

There is something to be said for boycotting elections.

If no one showed up they couldn't scam us into thinking our voice actually matters anymore.

posted April 21, 2016 12:36 PM            

For your voice to matter, you must make it heard in the first place, and elections are just one way to do that. In all honesty, if it were my daughter or mother who'd said that, then I'd tell her that if she doesn't bother casting her vote, then she has also thereby waived her right to complain about politics for the next four-year-period Partly joking here, as of course the right not to vote is a right as well... but one shouldn't then fool oneself into thinking that this act of boycotting a vote carries any weight or has any sort of political message, because it will most likely just be completely ignored. And one should indeed then refrain from complaining about what those who at least try to do something actually do - that would only be fair.

So if you don't vote, then your voice indeed doesn't matter, just because it was never cast - making the whole thing about votes not mattering a self-fulfilling prophesy, akin to suicide for fear of death. Elections are, after all, a kind of feedback mechanism, and if you don't give your feedback, then who's going to listen to that non-feedback of yours? Politicians are typically only interested in what their own voters want, while the non-voters and their preferences don't matter to them in the least. Which means that the only thing that happens if many people don't vote is that a minority (and there's always enough who will still go cast their vote) gets to decide things and has their voice heard.

Would you rather live in a monarchy, where an accident of birth decides who's the next ruler? Some people do, so that's by no means an ironic question.

posted April 21, 2016 03:19 PM            

quote:

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Who are these 'they' people you're referring to? Names please. I don't buy into all these vague "Zionists/Aliens/Illuminati secretly rule the world" theories that can never be pinned on any actual people...

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Vajra, I stopped paying attention to politics in a close way, shortly after Obama became President. For a while I was following things to assure myself that the (corrupt) power elites were still exerting their influence.

"They" = all the corrupt power elites.

Many of them are dual US-Isreali citizens, but whether that makes them Zionists or not, I don't know...I would have to look at it more closely on a case by case basis.

I've discussed The Project for the New American Century ad nauseum on this site. Nobody seems to care about that, though they designed The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.

Names here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

Short Intro Video from over a decade ago.

Now, consider the influence of someone like Rupert Murdoch, who is strongly affiliated with PNAC, though not overtly.

Murdoch's neoconservative rag The Weekly Standard was calling for war in the late 90's.

William Kristol, of PNAC, was the first editor of The Weekly Standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kristol

Like many others who went on to shape US foreign policy, whether it sounds crazy or not, he is a dual US-Israeli citizen.

Normally I wouldn't post a Facebook link and expect anyone to take it seriously, but I don't even feel interested enough to construct a more credible-looking argument. I know that what I'm saying is true.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/we-are-all-vittori o-arrigoni/list-of-politicians-with-israeli-dual-citizenship-/175479365845092/

Very important.

This is NOT anti-semitism, to point out who is in power.

It is just showing who is in power.

Now, the control of elections begins with the media hazing.

The media is controlled.

Why, I remember The American Heritage Foundation hosting one Repulican Debate, with war criminals themselves asking the questions to the Presidential candidates, war criminals like Paul Wolfowitz, and I didn't know a single person, in real life, who was aware of what was going on. Most Republicans took that debate at face value without considering the heavy bias woven into the program.

Anyway....

Vajra...am I really supposed to act like America is a normal country?

It's an extreme country, is it not?

Why is Germany under such hardship now...who can say it IS NOT a consequence of my country's atrocities?

And why is this the case?

Don't you think some extreme circumstances must be in effect, to make this country SO aggressive? And is it even this country's government, or power entities controlling our government, that makes this nation what it is?

quote:

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For your voice to matter, you must make it heard in the first place, and elections are just one way to do that.

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On what basis do you assume that we do not have fraudulent elections?

*scratching my head*

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but one shouldn't then fool oneself into thinking that this act of boycotting a vote carries any weight or has any sort of political message, because it will most likely just be completely ignored.

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Are you ignoring me? Seems we are having a conversation.

This is how it starts.

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Would you rather live in a monarchy, where an accident of birth decides who's the next ruler? Some people do, so that's by no means an ironic question.

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Again you go by a different assumption than I do: you believe that America is a democracy, a free country, ruled by elections and justice and the Constitution,

I consider the US a Corporations-ruled police state. It's getting worse all the time.

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Methinks that in the Al Gore vs G. Bush Jr. election, every single vote mattered.

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One might argue that NO votes mattered because it was rigged from the beginning. Pre-decided.

And WHY was it pre-decided?

So the hawks could have their war.

You know, if I lived in a war-torn country, and I was speaking in extremes about the enemies from within, I assume that you would totally understand.

But in America, since everything still looks so respectable on the surface, people are suspicious if you talk about the disgusting hidden aspects of it.

But it's connected. The filth, squalor, atrocity in those war-torn countries is a reflection of what's going on inside of America. Anyone willing to serve the military-industrial complex is part of the issue. Virtually ALL commercial chain stores exhibit pro-military behavior, with signs as soon as you walk in, thanking the soldiers, informing them of their discounts and so on. Even if you go into a church, most churches have become pro-war, hardcore pro-military.

It's become a war country. You never really see much protest. Even if people protest, the news won't feature it.

And how did that happen?

Spontaneously?

Through government mandate?

Through the work of a conspiracy of power elites? "Them"?

Well....I chose "them."

posted April 21, 2016 03:35 PM            

Most of my American friends never investigate the background story. They just watch the mainstream media and react to that.

posted April 21, 2016 05:44 PM            

But Europe is partly to blame for this development, too; after 1990, we were all too eager over here to reap the "peace dividend", leave external security (and in fact, international politics as a whole) more or less completely to the Americans, and stopped giving much thought to the outside world. You wouldn't believe how unbelievably self-centered Europeans can be as well, and how little they on average know about Africa or Asia or South America (and about the US, which some have a rather low opinion of). It's partly a matter of delayed justice that now suddenly, through the refugee crisis, our domestic Islamist terrorist cells, and Putin's strongman politics in the East, that Europeans suddenly have to wake up to the problems at their periphery. There is a lack of strategic foresight and a lack of a common purpose that leads to a giant waste of resources, to silly bickering, and basically just bad politics on a large scale. Our "fortress Europe" type economic policies are/were partly responsible for many problems in developing African countries, and our lack of effort at finding a common voice in international politics has made it difficult to promote the peaceful solutions for conflict that we've been testing and developing in Europe for the past few decades. This is such a pity.

For the world-wide media systems' problems I also blame the ongoing trend towards commercialization and distraction. Many news programs these days are incredibly shallow, and people are bombarded with celebrity gossip and advertisements that appeal to their lower instincts to a much larger degree than, say, twenty years ago. It takes the minds of people to other places than the problems in their own neighborhoods. This is certainly true for Europe as well (even though our news media are way more ideologically diverse than yours, which is a good thing, as basically every position is somewhere represented and it's not so easy to completely fool people, although they are just as easily distracted).

As to the military aggressiveness displayed by the US - my honest opinion is that the American populace, due to being geographically isolated from any major dangerous adversaries by two oceans, has forgotten what war feels like on the receiving end, because the only people now alive who've actually experienced it are traumatized veterans who returned from foreign deployments. It's not the same elsewhere in the world, where war has caused large-scale destruction within people's home countries at some point during the past 70 years. When I heard some Americans say things like "Let's bomb them back to the stone age", as some said after 9-11 about Iraq... I could not help but cringe, and marvel how anyone could ever advocate bombing helpless civilians...but at the same time, I realized it was not merely mindless cruelty that caused them to want this and say it, but mainly showed their delusion and ignorance more than malice. They probably didn't even conceive of those tens of thousands of dead Iraqi cilians who fell victim to the invasion as human beings, much in the same way that Europeans can be completely nonchalant about some genocide going on in some African or Asian country. It's far away, who cares, right? Nothing to do with us. So we cannot really point the fingers at you there...especially given that some European governments, such as Britain's, even supported that war.

Apart from that, I have to say - you're probably aware, having friends in Europe, that many here are very very critical of the US. Sometimes I feel they go overboard with their criticism, judging many things without fully understanding them, while neglecting to take into account other things that are still good and work well in the US. When it comes to me, knowing how little I understand your country (having only seen three different cities, and never stayed long, although I know a few Americans who live abroad) I try to avoid the extreme positions and judgments. Basically, to me, the US is a continent, not a country, having so many diverse faces. And certainly, Germany has not really any right to moralize when it comes to failed policies of aggression against other countries, given our history.

posted April 21, 2016 11:53 PM              

Apparently you know nothing about Americas true purpose and destiny and don't fully understand Trump. He isn't racist and he isn't sexist. Are you perfect? Nobody is saying Trump is perfect we are saying he is perfect right now because compared to the rest of the lying politicians who are running against him he looks extremely appealing to me and many others. Say what You want he is self made doesn't have any agenda but to make America the way its meant to be. I don't think building a wall is the answer and I don't think that's what is divinely intended so he probably will not even pursue that once he is in office.

The point is Trump isn't a paid politician and can never be bought or manipulated because he already has what people want. He doesn't have anything else to need. He is honest and again who cares about the comments he has made. Like you have never voiced an opinion that was distasteful.

posted April 22, 2016 10:15 AM            

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To me, it's important not to demonize and thus, de-humanize, such behavior, which gives it a sort of mythological grandezza; rather, I'd like to see a criminal being named a criminal rather than a Prince of Darkness, and for this, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that no matter the institutional setting people find themselves in at any given moment, it's still every individual's personal responsibility to act, and therefore, individual responsibility for actions and decisions should be assigned, and people rather than structures should be held responsible, which can only be achieved if one does a thorough job at researching who did what, and why.

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True, but it's tricky to call someone a criminal when they haven't been punished whatsoever, and there is no footage of them being hauled off to jail or even executed.

And while I don't like to demonize, the human brain has its habits, and when the names of leaders guilty of genocide cross my mind, there is that feeling of "What that person has done is flat-out evil."

Many of the architects of war hide in plain sight. Like Wolfowitz asking questions at a Presidential debate in 2012. Do you think the show provided context? I mean, when he spoke, were there captions at the bottom saying this gentleman so politely asking his questions has been convicted of war crimes? Or did the person who introduced him say, "Ahh, one of our own homeland Nazis, we're proud to host you here tonight!" No, he was presented as a regular, reputable statesman. And people follow those cues.

If you Google "Bush Administration War Criminals" see how many names come up in the articles? Hardly any. Either they know the people won't recognize the names, or they are part of the conspiracy to keep those names untainted (?) For example, this from Esquire online:

quote:

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At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

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Bold mine. Names please? And, to what extent are they still in power? And I don't mean, serving as elected officials. I'm talking about the non-elected power structure that actually determines everything.

There is almost no point in naming names or discussing where power is actually concentrated and the means with which it controls the government. There's no sense mentioning anything that wasn't covered in the mainstream media narrative. Nobody cares. Furthermore, the conversation is kept narrow by the way people have been trained to regard certain types of information as harmful or unspeakable. The information is stigmatized and if you speak this information, you, in turn, are stigmatized.

So when you say "Zionist," that is a stigmatized word. Play with it wrong and you get branded a nutjob and the ridicule begins. The conversation devolves to something like a ritualistic, scripted volley, where one person is laughing and espousing "normal" information while the other is acting frustrated or angry or even like a nutjob, repeating the same "irrelevent" facts statistics they have futilely squirreled away in their brains, just for occasions such as these. When I go into my PNAC lesson, I feel like I'm playing the role of the desperate nutjob, every time.

And it's the same thing with many other facets of the power structure. You are not supposed to talk about what is actually happening, of course. True, many alternative "news" outlets have attracted and created enough disturbed individuals that people want to spot them from afar and avoid them. But if more people were more courageously educated and willing to delve into things more, willing to see the enormity of the corruption, and the strangeness of the corruption then there could be more of a national conversation. Until then, there appear to be just two camps: the consumers of the mainstream media, and those who talk about other things. The infighting is the distraction that prevents change. And by the way, that second camp is marginalized whether its people are listening to shrill hothead Alex Jones or keeping up with a respected journalist like Glenn Greenwald. Many times the information dovetails and is agreed-upon by most "alternative" sources, and of course, sometimes the powerful people themselves are willing to call a spade a spade:

quote:

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It's easy to see how energy security and other strategic interests are behind many of the questionable foreign policy decisions we've seen in the past years, and in the absence of a strong adversary, cruel or outright illegal methods were often employed to pursue them.

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Yes

But you know, it's not just about securing oil, it's about preserving the value of the dollar and it's also about making rich people richer. It's also about the heroin trade and many other things. Pretty sickening to think about it.

Anyway, with my level of distrust in the government, it's just hard to participate in the conventional elections dialogue. I have no hope for any positive changes, so I almost have no preferences.

Just the fact that Hillary and Trump have risen to the top, over all the people in this country with more integrity, brains, and common sense then they have, proves that the system is self-validating, self-perpetuating, and securely above the reach of regular thinking people.

Sorry this was so long.

posted April 22, 2016 10:23 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by athenegoddess:
Faith all I have to say is you're right you are one of the unenlightened Americans so you aren't wrong on that one.

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You may not know this?

But I LOVE how ridiculous you are.

I truly love it.

posted April 24, 2016 03:33 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
He's only down by 200 or so pledged delegates and there's still a long way to go yet. A big win in New York, Pennsylvania, or California would erase that deficit or at the very least put a huge dent in it. Regardless of whether you think he can pull it off or not, you can't argue the fact that he has all the momentum now. He's starting to win states and win them by wide margins and he's also starting to win over the minorities. Hillary has done nothing but lose leads. And most of the states she has won have been states that will never vote democrat in the general election anyway. Bernie is the one winning blue states.

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Nationally, Bernie's virtually tied with Clinton and he started out being what 40 points down, and a senator from a small state without a national profile going up against a candidate with national name recognition and a formidable political machine. Her numbers have only gone down, his keep going up. Even with the entire Democratic establishment and the media behind her, and several SuperPacs funding her campaign, according to Nate Silver and others, she's not going to have the delegates to win the nomination going into the convention. In which case, they'll both have to make their case to the superdelegates.

posted April 24, 2016 04:20 AM            

The whole article by Seth Abramson of the Huffington Post is excellent.

On the issue of superdelegates in the 2016 Democratic primary, we've seen how the corporate media keeps including them in the delegate count in order to create an illusion in the minds of voters of Clinton's lead as "insurmountable." In fact, Sanders is about 230 pledged delegates behind Clinton.

Abramson asks this question: "...whether Sanders genuflecting before a super-delegate system Clinton has abused from the first day of this campaign is better for the Democratic Party — mind you, not “better for Bernie Sanders”; not “better for his supporters”; not even, in this respect, “better for America” — than is challenging that system by enforcing the behaviors and procedures the Party should have itself adopted long ago.

I’m a Democrat, and I think super-delegates are undemocratic.

I think Senator Sanders has endured the corruption of the super-delegate system for almost a year now — I think its deployment has weakened his support, polling, and actual electoral success from the jump, and I think few would disagree — and see no dishonor whatsoever in the man who most was disadvantaged from the undemocratic nature of that system using his half-the-party support within the Democratic Party and majority support nationally (as in polls against Kasich, Cruz, or Trump) to begin the process of liberating the Party he has always voted with from a laundry-list of its seediest features.

posted April 24, 2016 04:27 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
I am. But I don't see either Trump or Sanders being allowed to take the nominations.

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posted April 24, 2016 04:29 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
Something will force Sanders out of the race.

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Bernie is going all the way to the convention.

posted April 24, 2016 04:38 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Gemini Blues:
...from both the Sanders camp and the "traditional" Republican base, she will be seen as the lesser of all evils.

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From what I'm hearing from a lot of Bernie supporters, the "lesser of two evils" argument isn't going to work on them. They're disgusted with her dirty campaign tactics and won't vote for her under any circumstances.

posted April 24, 2016 04:44 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
Looks like a really good chance for a contested convention with the last win by Cruz.

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posted April 24, 2016 04:55 AM            

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Originally posted by Gemini Blues:
Winning States doesn't matter as much as winning delegates for Bernie

It’s Really Hard To Get Bernie Sanders 988 More Delegates

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Nobody knows for certain if Clinton is going to win the required delegates before the convention either. But the corporate media likes to focus on Bernie's deficits because Clinton is their candidate and they're helping her to win. In any event, Bernie's going to the convention and it's going to be interesting.

posted April 24, 2016 05:53 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Vajra:

For your voice to matter, you must make it heard in the first place, and elections are just one way to do that.

Elections are, after all, a kind of feedback mechanism, and if you don't give your feedback, then who's going to listen to that non-feedback of yours?

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Hey Vajra. Good to "see" you here.

In a democratic system, what you're saying is true. But, unfortunately, here in the U.S., there are a number of aspects about our elections that are undemocratic. Just this month, in the Democratic primary in New York, 125,000 people in Brooklyn were purged from the voting rolls. In NY, only registered Democrats can vote in the primary. Democrats, who had been registered as such and voted for years, found their party affiliation had been mysteriously changed so they couldn't vote in the primary. The NY Attorney General's Office received 900 calls from voters across the state having problems voting. Polling stations were closed or changed a day before the election. Polling stations in Arizona were drastically reduced creating a situation where people stood in long lines for five hours in order to vote. A lawsuit has just been filed in NY against several NY county board of elections and also in Arizona. Similar incidents are being reported in other states as well.

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Politicians are typically only interested in what their own voters want, while the non-voters and their preferences don't matter to them in the least. Which means that the only thing that happens if many people don't vote is that a minority (and there's always enough who will still go cast their vote) gets to decide things and has their voice heard.

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Not here. In the U.S. politicians and elected representatives in both political parties do the bidding of campaign contributors and lobbyists, not the people. Money in politics is a huge issue. The U.S. Supreme Court came down with a ruling that corporations are people and money is speech. Corporations can pump huge sums of money into elections, vastly more than individual citizens can. They buy elections and politicians. We have a system of legalized bribery. Many people know the system is rigged and corrupt and that's why they don't vote, until now with Bernie Sanders entering the race.

Knowing all this, I still vote, but I will not vote for the lesser of two evils, which is the only choice we're often presented with in a two party system that makes it almost impossible for third parties to be viable.

posted April 24, 2016 02:56 PM            

Yes, I read about the voting procedures in the US a while ago and wondered why it was all seemingly so complicated. Thanks for explaining more in-depth. In Germany, it's done rather differently - here, since every person must register their main residence, every person of voting age is automatically known to the authorities and gets notified weeks before the election. The package sent to every voter contains information on how to vote, a list of the eligible parties and candidates one can use to ponder, and for those who can't make it on election day due to being ill or handicapped, or being scheduled to travel, there's a letter voting form included that needs to be signed and filled out to accompany the anonymous vote one puts in a separate envelope and sends both to the election office. I've done that once as well. So even if one is not able to personally go cast a vote on election day, one can still vote using the letter voting system, it's very simple. And we just use a pen to make a cross on paper, not voting machines or anything, and yet on the late evening of election day, nearly all the votes are usually counted already, so it's both quick and simple.

The money problem is another matter...as far as I know, illegal campaign donations do occur here too sometimes (and one former chancellor even spent some time in jail because he wasn't willing to say where some anonymous illegal donations came from, while the fine imposed by the court nearly bankrupted his party) but still, it's on average not that extreme.