US public and Middle East to pay price of Republican and Democratic cowardice

[cyclezealot]

New interesting website. An interesting read is a fuller replay of Rev. Wrights' controversial speech. And the question. Do Americans really want change. ?It states, if so they did not select it.Does Rev. Wrights speech seem as controversial when in fuller context?

$$$

Paul J. Balles argues that, if the US Republicans and Democrats believed in real change, they would have nominated Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich – two men who would not run away from the truth – to run for the presidency.

Focused on issues or trivia, US media giants continue to revel in election politics. Three US senators have been busily campaigning for nominations for the US presidency.

Whether it's Hillary Clinton trying to be more macho than her male opponents, or John McCain attempting to display more chutzpah than G.W. Bush, or Barack Obama disowning the mentor he should be praising, the whole process is a sideshow on demand.

The "on demand" part of the sideshow comes from the American public. If the Republicans wanted brains at the helm rather than a Bush clone, they would have nominated Ron Paul, a candidate whose foreign policy would keep America from pre-emptive and presumptive wars.

Paul wouldn't be spending his time in Florida trying to convince voters there, as McCain has, that the Democratic candidates would jeopardize Israel's security and that the US should bomb Iran.

If the Democrats didn’t believe that change can only be made by electing either a woman or a black American, they might have nominated Dennis Kucinich, the only candidate with the brains and the integrity to bring about real change. Kucinich wouldn't be threatening, as Hillary Clinton has, to "totally obliterate" Iran.

To his credit, Obama had enough sense to reject that sort of sabre-rattling when he told Tim Russert of MSNBC

it's important that we use language that sends a signal to the world community that we're shifting from the sort of cowboy diplomacy, or lack of diplomacy, that we've seen out of George Bush. And this kind of language is not helpful.

In the early debates, Kucinich revealed that he wouldn't run from the truth even when it hurt. Unfortunately, he couldn't convince the voters that the most patriotic citizens often criticize and accept deserved criticism of their own country.

snip.

Obama ran from the truth of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons and turned on his pastor. In his most famous sermon, Wright told the truth:

We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gaddafi’s home and killed his child. “Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock!

We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. We killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians – not soldiers – people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism.

Obama should have praised his pastor’s integrity and wisdom. Ron Paul would have. Dennis Kucinich would have. But they lost. The real losers: the American public and the Middle East.

http://www.redress.cc/americas

[slipslidingaway]

1. K&R "The real losers: the American public and the Middle East..."

That is why Dennis got our votes...


http://www.alternet.org/story/74268/

'The resilient 2008 candidate attacks the "inside game between competing corporate interests" in U.S. politics...

"...Hedges: Have we evolved into a corporate state?

Kucinich: I Look at it as the political equivalent of genetic engineering. That we've taken the gene of corporate America and shot it into both political parties. So they both now are growing with that essence within. So what does that mean? It means oil runs our politics. Corrupt Wall Street interests run our politics. Insurance companies run our politics. Arms manufacturers run our politics. And the public interest is being strangled. Fulfilling the practical aspirations of people should be our mission. How do we measure up to providing people with jobs? It was a Democratic president that made it possible for NAFTA to be passed, causing millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs that help support the middle class. . . .

NAFTA, GAT, the WTO, China Trade, and every other trade agreement that's passed in Congress has been passed with the help of either the leadership of or with the help of the Democratic Party, knowing that each and every one of those agreements was devoid of protections for workers, knowing that if you don't have workers' rights put into a trade agreement then workers here in the United States are going to see their own bargaining position undermined because corporations can move jobs out of the country to places where workers don't have any rights. They don't have the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike. So what I see is that the Democratic Party abandoned working people, and paradoxically they're the ones who hoist the flag of workers every two and four years only to engender excitement, and then to turn around and abandon their constituency. This is now on the level of a practiced ritual. At least a biannual ceremony, or every two years. So you can see how pernicious this becomes when the minimum wage increase was tied to funding the war. That, to me, says it all. Because it is inevitably the sons and daughters of working Americans that are the ones who are led to slaughter. Aspirations for health care.

So what I've done in my campaign is to advocate a full-employment economy. How do you do that? A new WPA-type program. We'll rebuild America's bridges, water systems, sewer systems, our libraries, our universities, our mass transit systems. And we do that with a program that I introduced legislation in repeated Congresses with the cosponsorship of a Republican from Ohio by the name of Steven LaTourette and the bill, HR 3400, provides for rebuilding America's infrastructure. And I would put millions of people back to work in good-paying jobs. I would put millions more back to work in new energy policies where we would design, engineer, manufacture, install and maintain wind and solar microtechnologies which would be retrofitted into tens of millions of American homes and businesses, driving down our carbon footprint and dramatically reducing our cost of energy. This would be a major development in America to take us away from a condition where America is leading the way towards the destruction of our global climate. I call this part of it the WG: a Works Green Administration, where we turn government into an engine of sustainability, where the whole government becomes about moving towards green. The transportation plan, mass transit, housing and development - it's about green housing, solar, natural lighting, using recycled material, the energy department stops incentivizing coal and oil and nuclear, and moves toward incentivizing wind and solar, bringing forward a whole generation of entrepreneurs just waiting to get into green energy solutions..."

[cyclezealot]

2. Equally stong post

If only Kucinich's voice could have been heard.

[truedelphi]

4. It is tragic that Ron Paul was able to get more of the Indie and Repug vote

Than Kucinich.

Why is that?

Look at the mastering of subliminal persuasion - it is explained in the video whose URL is embedded before my sig line.

Anyway in a decent world, the November election would be between Ron Paul and Kucinich.

[slipslidingaway]

8. That could have been dangerous to the status quo :( n/t

[yurbud]

3. Hillary's ''obliterate Iran'' remark was not aimed at voters but at corporations

who profit from war and oil companies in particular.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Ron Paul...

would have (if not prevented by Congress) abolished *all* government help for the poor; subverted democracy by abolishing the Voting Right Act; abolished women's right to choose; and alienated the rest of the world by RW xenophobic isolationism, which is just as bad in a different way as RW neo-conservativism.

I find it amazing that anyone can speak favourably on a liberal board of a right-wing monster like Paul. Electing him would be like having LePen as president of France (he also opposes this war, but is nevertheless viciously RW).

Kucinich is another matter. Or what about any one of the 23 senators and rather larger number of Representatives who voted against the IWR?

All right, I know in one sense it's not my business as I'm not American; but giving any part of the Right respectability among progressives could end up enabling far-right movements EVERYWHERE.

[Poppa]

6. Ron Paul con't

I am an American, a liberal Democrat, a taxpayer, a veteran, and a voter and it is my business, no my duty, to help denounce right-wing lunatic fringe members such as Ron Paul. All progressives, regardless of nationality, should have that right and take the opportunity to criticize goons like Ron Paul and the unbelievable fantasy of them being elected as POTUS on such liberal boards as DU. Thank you Leftish Brit for your post.

[cyclezealot]

7. Id never vote for Paul

Neither would Kucinich's wife, once she completely understood Paul's domestic agenda. But, we can like those we disapprove of. Libertians are dead wrong; but, at least they are not authoritarians , respect the Bill of Rights unlike the Repugs. Because our liberties would be comparatively safe under Paul, I consider him less radical than Rudy Guliani or John McCain. At least Paul voted against the Patriot act unlike the others.

[slipslidingaway]

9. Who benefits by keeping people divided and turning attention

away form those on the "far Right" or the "far Left" ... my bet is that it is not the common folk.

:shrug:


Moyers speaks of race in this essay, but it can easily be applied to political parties or any opponent.


"All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

[LeftishBrit]

10. I am not quite sure what you are saying...

I could interpret your remarks in two opposite ways:

(1) There is a damaging attempt to divert people's attention from the dangers of the far right, who oversimplify issues to the detriment of most people.

(2) There is a damaging attempt to make people reject the views of people on the far right, and this is itself an oversimplification of the issues.

I would agree with the first, but would most emphatically disagree with the second.

The 'common people' would certainly not benefit from the economic policies of Ron Paul, or people like him. And women and people in minority groups would not benefit from their social policies.

[slipslidingaway]

12. I just think we need to focus on issues where we agree and

outline issues where we disagree if we are to move forward. Although I am certainly no expert on Ron Paul, from what I gather he believes that that common folk pay way too much in taxes that the government then wastes, one large drain is military spending. While I agree 100% with the high military spending, I disagree on his social spending. Instead of merely putting a label on Kucinich or Paul where many people will just dismiss them in total we should discuss the specific issues and not try to simplify the person.

Kucinich and Paul were the only two candidates to vote against the IWR and the Patriot Act for example, but of course they are marginalized by the press, their own parties and the opposite party.

So who wins by having these voices silenced.

:shrug:

[LeftishBrit]

13. I don't want voices 'silenced' (I believe in freedom of speech for all!)...

but I also don't want alliances between progressives and far-right-wingers.

Paul is a MONSTER in my opinion, and should not be mentioned in the same breath as Kucinich. That's like mentioning Tony Benn and the British National Party in the same breath, because they're both opposed to the war.

There are lots of opponents of the war around - why make alliances with supporters of someone who thinks poor people aren't entitled to health care; that women should have no right to choose; that support for gay rights is 'heterophobia'; that it should be up to the individual states whether your probable Democratic candidate is allowed to vote; that America should not fought the Nazis in WW2 if it meant an alliance with the Soviet Union?

[slipslidingaway]

14. But their ideas do become silenced. Reducing military spending,

speaking out against preventive wars, accountability, blowback, our civil liberties etc. have all been tossed to the sidelines by people in the middle.

Instead the moderates came together to authorize and fund the Iraq War, approve trade relations with China, repeal banking regulations, more media consolidation, NAFTA, FISA legislation, attempts to privatize Iraq's resources etc.


How's that working out for most people either in the US or abroad?


Kucinich and Paul have worked together on issues...

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Kucinich-Paul Congressional Hearing on Civilian Casualties in Iraq

http://www.juancole.com/2006/12/kucinich-paul-congressional-hearing-on.html




"The resilient 2008 candidate attacks the "inside game between competing corporate interests" in U.S. politics..."

http://www.alternet.org/story/74268

[LeftishBrit]

16. Of course these issues should be brought up...

And I am not saying that 'moderates' are all-wonderful: most American moderates would be Conservatives in Europe.

However, that does not justify alliances between left and extreme right. Far right-wing leaders are the incarnation of pure evil; their supporters are either also evil or (often) ignorant. The ignorant can sometimes be enlightened and convinced; but that does not make it desirable to get into bed with the right-wing leaders.

You ask "who benefits from these voices being silenced". I would change that to "who would suffer if someone like Ron Paul got into power?" Answers include: the poor; the old or ill; minority groups; women. In sum, that includes most people.

A question or two for you:

You are aware that the BNP, LePen, David Duke and Pat Buchanan are all opposed to the war? Would you think it acceptable to form alliances with any of *these* people?

[zonmoy]

11. are they mistaking alleged cowardice of the democrats

for their collaboration

[slipslidingaway]

15. Good question! n/t