volunteered for Edwards..it is sure to be a doozy...a big doozy...but your media has told you so little about a certain candidates problems in connection with Rezko....that is if you are so inclined to really know about the candidates you have chosen..since themedia has delved so little into his real background.
Hell evwen his classes for volunteers his people teach the volunteers to not discuss his policies!!
while you are here..why not learn what the media has not told you...
start here: and a thank you to:kelligesq
Our Own Dem Party Snookered Us Once Again-The Power Behind Obama
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... i thank some du'er's for this info..
the op i thank is: Armstead for the following thread..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4477113#4477239Neoliberalism and the election. --- Does anyone care?
thanks to Emit,for posting this... Neocons vs Neoliberal - is there any difference at all?
Neocons vs Neoliberal - is there any difference at all?
Neolibs and Neocons, United and Interchangeable
Philip Giraldi
When it comes to foreign policy, particularly as it relates to the Middle East, there is not a whole lot of separation between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Republicans tend to be more bellicose in their statements, but Democrats have more than made up for that with their steely resolve to take the fight to the enemy wherever he might be. Both Republicans and Democrats reflexively support Israel, and nearly all candidates are in agreement on a number of other areas, including an aggressive policy toward Iran.
~snip~
The key to understanding the direction that candidates will take is to examine their foreign policy advisers. The candidates themselves, with one or two exceptions, know little about the world and its problems. They operate on a basis of packaged responses to set questions and are essentially looking for quick, soundbite solutions that will enable them to be characterized as strong on national security. Apart from that, most would be quite willing to leave the subject alone. How they think is processed and filtered by their advisers, most of whom appear to believe that the American public has an unending appetite for overseas adventures in spite of the fact that such policies have brought nothing but grief for the past 15 years. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are shy about using force. Bill Clinton enforced sanctions on Iraq that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands; he killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians when he bombed Serbia; and he was more than willing to use cruise missiles against civilian targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. George Bush has accepted a rather broader mandate, invading two countries and bombing several more, resulting in hundreds of thousands dead.
The two leading Democratic candidates for president are undeniably Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary is regarded as by far the more conservative candidate in that she has carefully triangulated her potential supporters and is unwilling to say that her vote in the Senate in support of the Iraq war was a mistake. She has also positioned herself with the Israel lobby through her pledge to disarm Iran by whatever means necessary and her threat to use nuclear weapons on terrorists. Her foreign policy advisers are a who's who of neoliberal hawks, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who famously believed that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to sanctions was "worth it." Clinton is also being advised by Richard Holbrooke, who is reported to be close to Paul Wolfowitz. Holbrooke is a possible candidate for secretary of state if Clinton is elected president. Holbrooke has been a supporter of the Iraq war, and he was an architect of the 1999 bombing of Serbia. Strobe Talbott, who advised Bill Clinton and was also involved with the bombing of Serbia, is reported to be another Hillary adviser.
Barack Obama is somewhat more enigmatic, but his recent ill-advised pledge to attack Pakistan if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf does not do something about the Taliban and al-Qaeda shows that he is working hard to catch up. Obama's key advisers who speak for him on foreign policy include Gregory Craig, Anthony Lake, and Samantha Power. Craig is a leading Washington lawyer who was a White House special counsel under Bill Clinton and defended the president in his impeachment trial. Lake was also a Bill Clinton adviser who was involved in the Bosnian conflict. Power is an Irish-born Harvard professor from the Kennedy School who is regarded as an expert on Third World issues. None of the three is considered to be particularly partisan on any foreign policy issues but genocide, which Power has written a book about, but Obama is also accelerating his efforts to woo Jewish donors and to improve his standing with AIPAC, which has been suspicious of him because of youthful indiscretions that included expressions of sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians. He recently appointed Eric Lynn to develop an aggressive program of outreach to the Jewish community on his record of support for Israel, which he claims is unwavering. Obama fully endorsed Israel's invasion of Lebanon last year, and he has also cited his more recent sponsorship of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of May 2007, another irresponsible piece of legislation by Congress that will increase the suffering of the Iranian people while doing nothing to change the country's leadership. He has pledged that Iran will not be allowed to threaten Israel through its nuclear program, but he is vague on exactly what he would do to stop it.
http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2007/08/neocons-vs-ne... I've had some concerns when news came out that Obama called in Brzezinski:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... Here's another good read on Neoliberalism v Neoconservatism, from the Neoliberal view:
The Neoliberal Take on the Middle East
Middle East, Force and Legitimacy, Diplomacy
Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
Ronald D. Asmus, Senior Transatlantic Fellow
The Washington Post
A consensus is emerging in Washington that the greater Middle East constitutes the primary strategic challenge of our time and that the West must fundamentally rethink the way it approaches this region. In the past, Washington assumed it didn't have to care about the internal order of these countries so long as they accommodated our interests in their foreign policies. ...But whack-a-mole isn't a very good game, and it's an even worse foreign policy...
~snip~
... Neocons and neoliberals recognize that the status quo in the Middle East is producing anti-Americanism, terrorism and failed and rogue states and has gone way beyond "management." Both agree the West must promote the transformation and democratization of the region. But they disagree profoundly on how best to do so. Neoliberals believe that coercive democratization is bound to fail and that true success will come only from a long-term effort to help push Arabs to reform their own societies from within. This leads to four fundamental differences.
* Preemption and use of force. Neocons believe that the United States must use a high-pressure approach to compel Arab regimes to change, by force if necessary. They argue that the region's problems are so great and the danger of another 9/11 so real—this time with chemical, biological or radiological weapons—that the end justifies the means. If the regimes of the region won't change, American power should be used to bring change about. The invasion and reconstruction of Iraq are not an exception but a precedent that, if need be, can and will be replicated elsewhere.
Neoliberals, among whom we number ourselves, believe in political preemption first and military preemption only as a last resort. We supported the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq because we concluded that force was the only way to lance these boils. But force will not work as a normal tool of policy or social engineering in the Middle East. Our goal must be to have the Arabs embrace democracy and modernization, not to force it down their throats. ...
* Nation-building. Neocons don't like nation-building, and the Republican Party has largely opposed it for more than a decade. Thus, while neoconservatives talk of democracy promotion, they have a hard time carrying through on it. Nothing better exemplifies this than the administration's fits of attention deficit disorder when it is forced to promote democracy on the ground in ways that go against its own ideological instincts—as is evident today in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Neoliberals see nation-building as a strategic tool. Winning the peace is as important as winning the war, only harder. ...
* The Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Many neocons are skeptical about the peace process. While they rhetorically embrace the goal of Palestinian democracy as a key part of a two-state solution, they prefer to do nothing, excusing their inaction by insisting that Arab autocrats first convert to democracy. Neoliberals embrace the peace process as a priority both for the security of Israel and to open the door for a broader transformation of the region. ...
* Empire vs. leadership. Neocons talk about empire and American primacy as a legitimate goal. They eschew traditional alliances as burdensome and prefer ad hoc coalitions or simply going it alone. They believe might makes right and international rules and norms are there for the bad guys, not us. Neoliberals believe in leadership through persuasion and strong multilateral alliances. Transforming the Middle East will take decades of sustained political, economic and strategic cooperation. ....
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2003/0722middleeast_a... 
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