US Presidential Elections 2008 (5 Viewers)

[broken arm]

i believe the only reason obama has gotten to the stage hes at is precisely because hes a black man

what?

It must be hard for you having to choose between a puppet black man and a clueless old crony.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

great attitude, so we just let the terrorists win? i with Retar..Reformer on this one

Libs :heart: the blak mans dick, yo!!!1

When youre tramping around the airport in your socks - they have already won.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

Where does Obama stand on the defeat of evil?

Seeing as he's a muslim?

 

[reformer]

What is it you admire about McCain?

the most relevant issues to any non americans

the economy http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/trade.htm
keep low tax rates to encourage entrepreneurs,lower corporate taxes to encourage business' to invest,absolutely
nothing wrong there.lowering of barriers to trade,again i have no problem with that,its these very trade
agreements that have brought unparalled wealth to the western world and are now trickling down to less developed
countries.

iraq http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/fdeb03a7-30b0-4ece-8e34-4c7ea83f11d8.htm
he supported the surge which has seen a marked decrease in violence within iraq.long term aims to keep u.s.
troops in the country till such a time as the iraqis can defend themselves and no longer.obamas answer?phased withdrawal by
2010.it may be quiet out there now but whose to say secterian tensions wont arise again before then?will he still
continue to pull out 1-2 brigades a month?


climate change http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/da151a1c-733a-4dc1-9cd3-f9ca5caba1de.htm
cap and trade is a big part of his climate change plan and so far is one of the more feasible options on the table,
much as most business' would like to portray themselves as eco friendly they have not yet reached a stage whereby
they will be altruistic enough to voluntarily invest in greener technologies which can be quite expensive.the cap and
trade system gives them a profit motive to do so.

great attitude, so we just let the terrorists win? i with Retar..Reformer on this one

Libs :heart: the blak mans dick, yo!!!1

another outstanding post,you and "i talk shite" would get on great.

 

[the strange guy]

YouTube - are you having a laugh

 

[taubstumm]

you're actually serious about this, aren't you? bizarre.

not that it really matters; none of us get to vote anyway...

the most relevant issues to any non americans

the economy http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/trade.htm
keep low tax rates to encourage entrepreneurs,lower corporate taxes to encourage business' to invest,absolutely
nothing wrong there.lowering of barriers to trade,again i have no problem with that,its these very trade
agreements that have brought unparalled wealth to the western world and are now trickling down to less developed
countries.

iraq http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/fdeb03a7-30b0-4ece-8e34-4c7ea83f11d8.htm
he supported the surge which has seen a marked decrease in violence within iraq.long term aims to keep u.s.
troops in the country till such a time as the iraqis can defend themselves and no longer.obamas answer?phased withdrawal by
2010.it may be quiet out there now but whose to say secterian tensions wont arise again before then?will he still
continue to pull out 1-2 brigades a month?


climate change http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/da151a1c-733a-4dc1-9cd3-f9ca5caba1de.htm
cap and trade is a big part of his climate change plan and so far is one of the more feasible options on the table,
much as most business' would like to portray themselves as eco friendly they have not yet reached a stage whereby
they will be altruistic enough to voluntarily invest in greener technologies which can be quite expensive.the cap and
trade system gives them a profit motive to do so.

 

[Reets]

as much as id like Obama to win i really cant see it happening, too much of a divide in the demacratic party,as a higher % of republicans vote they need to be united.
add to that the reverand and his wife saying “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country".

 

[Mormon Nailer]

the economy http://www.johnmccain.com/Issues/JobsforAmerica/trade.htm
keep low tax rates to encourage entrepreneurs,lower corporate taxes to encourage business' to invest,absolutely
nothing wrong there.lowering of barriers to trade,again i have no problem with that,its these very trade
agreements that have brought unparalled wealth to the western world and are now trickling down to less developed
countries.

Ignore the fact that McCain by his own admission is pretty clueless about economics none of the things you state above are actually true.

The idea that lower taxes stimulates savings or investment is nonsense. Republicans say stuff like this a lot but they don't actualy believe it. In fact levels of saving in the US are no higher now then they were when tax rates were closer to 50% so lowering taxes has no effect on investment and savings decision.

Look for example at the oil industry. The oil industy is in the middle of and unprecidented boom, taxes are lower than ever and the price of oil has never been higher yet there has not ben a new oil refinery comissioned in the US since 1974 and tehr are no plans to do so.

Trade agreements dont bring unparalleled weath - in fact protectionism does. The only way developing countries mange to grow their economies it by protecting indigenous industry from competition from outside.

The idea of wealth trickling down to the poorest in poor countries is a grotesque notion. That this years fashionable melquiador should be grateful of the pittance offered untill the time comes to move on. Bollox. Tis type of industy exploits a country and it's people for as long as possible before moving on. And nothing is left afterwards.

Republicans talk about small government and low taxes - what they are actually doing is carving up the ewealth of the country to the benefit of their conies - it is client government. It's the economic equivalent of "Heckuva job Brownie"

iraq http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/fdeb03a7-30b0-4ece-8e34-4c7ea83f11d8.htm
he supported the surge which has seen a marked decrease in violence within iraq.long term aims to keep u.s.
troops in the country till such a time as the iraqis can defend themselves and no longer.obamas answer?phased withdrawal by
2010.it may be quiet out there now but whose to say secterian tensions wont arise again before then?will he still
continue to pull out 1-2 brigades a month?

Can defend themselves from what?
The people who invaded their country at the whim of a cabal of lying neoconsevatives, who's total incompetence has resulted in the complete and total distruction of the infrastructure of the country?

McCains answer to the illegal immoral war that has cost the lives of 4000 american kids and tens if not hundreds of thousands if iraquis is "stay the course".

His position is even nore out there than Bush's who has spoken numberous times abuout the need for a timetable for withdrawl.

 

[broken arm]

climate change http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/da151a1c-733a-4dc1-9cd3-f9ca5caba1de.htm
cap and trade is a big part of his climate change plan and so far is one of the more feasible options on the table,
much as most business' would like to portray themselves as eco friendly they have not yet reached a stage whereby
they will be altruistic enough to voluntarily invest in greener technologies which can be quite expensive.the cap and
trade system gives them a profit motive to do so.

Interesting to see that he is copying some of the EU (the EU ETS guidelines were established in 2004 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/emission/history_en.htm ) and Kyoto mechanisms and that Obama has proposed exactly the same "cap-and-trade" approach. It would be interesting to see how a right-wing government would set and manage the allowences in such a system.

 

[broken arm]

allowances not allowences....

 

[egg_]

trickling down to less developed
countries

Trickling down??? Dude, I don't think any cock-eyed notion has been as comprehensively discredited as the idea of wealth "trickling down"

 

[broken arm]

“Trickle-down theory - the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith

 

[reformer]

right i cant remember all your counter arguments,ill try address the ones i can-iraq?what would you do?pull out immediately leaving a vaccuum into which al queda/whatever terrorist group would step?i disagreed with the war from the off but now that its happened they do indeed have to stay the course.
trickle down effect-tell the people of eastern europe they havent gotten richer since the fall of communism and their joining the eu.look at chinas growing middle classes.
lower taxes means more money in peoples pockets,what can they do with this?spend it and so give a boost to the economy,reinvest it in the hope of gaining more money or else indeed save it.what else they gonna do?

 

[CitySickness]

right i cant remember all your counter arguments

Here they are:
http://www.thumped.com/bbs/showpost.php?p=1088869&postcount=668

 

[jane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/politics/26threat.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

But if you read the second paragraph, it's easy to see why it's not a credible threat. It's a couple of meth-heads, folks. A threat to all and sundry, but mostly to whatever trailer park they're keeping their meth lab in.

I'm fucking psyched that I'm going to be there for the election. If my absentee ballot doesn't get to me in time, I'm gonna have to make my way to the last place I was registered, which is a tiny town in Western MA (Pop. 350), inaccessible by public transport. It'll be like going back to fucking Nazareth or something, only I'm the ass.

I don't think McCain will win, but I do think that even if he did, he'd be against the ropes for all 4 years, so things might still be okay. I have to think that or my brain will die.

Also, I get what you're saying, reformer. And yes, there are certain elements that have given Obama the edge initially, and yes, there are certain people who might comfort themselves by thinking that voting for a black fella means they aren't racist.

You're misunderstanding, though, what Geraldine Ferraro said during the primary. Being a black dude is part of who he is because it's part of his experience of the world, and it shaped some of his identity and his politics, but there's no one factor anyone can isolate to explain why others are voting for him, or why he is where he is right now.

It doesn't win nominations, and it doesn't win elections. He is a brilliant orator, with a really special ability to stir people's optimism, while also fuelling their can-do spirit, and that's an incredible combination.

Maybe his ability to do that has something to do with growing up the child of a single mom. With growing up in Hawaii. With being called Barry. With growing up a different colour than a lot of people around him (including his own mother). With being black in a white world, where black kids have all kinds of shit stacked against them from birth, and sometimes have to work way fucking harder to get over all kinds of obstacles. With being a dad of two daughters. With being married to a fucking brilliant, beautiful woman who calls bullshit when she sees it. With working in the jobs he's been in. With being a lawyer. With having a lot to say. With having charisma and passion and brains. With being a junior senator, who has a lot to prove to a senate that operates like a recently and reluctantly desegregated fucking frat house.

Sure, he went to Harvard, so he's not exactly one of the po' folk, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have some understanding of what people need. And he acknowledges his privilege, and that it's not something everyone is going to do, nor should people who don't go to Harvard be blamed for not being millionaires in adulthood.

But fuck, there are certainly cunts who are voting for McCain who just wanna vote for the white guy because he's the status quo. There are people who are voting for McCain because they're still pissed about Hillary. Still, not enough to make the difference, and you still can't argue that he is *only* there because he's white.

Even if there are a few white-guilt voters, they probably would have voted Democrat anyway because feigned liberalism soothes their consciences. Most of the people who are voting for Obama are voting for him because he's the better candidate, and McCain has done nothing but be the political equivalent of the spoiled jock in the back of the class, telling mom jokes.

And at this point, most of us who are voting Democrat would have voted Dem anyway -- it's the swing voters who don't care a lot about politics who can't decide. I would be voting for Hillary Clinton had she won because she's a Democrat, not because she's a woman, and only partly because she'd make a better president than McCain would.

McCain's politics are stupider than Bush's. Bush was more of a puppet than McCain is, and I'm not sure I'd want a man with his temper in charge of my country, nor a man who thinks it's okay to go campaigning at a bike rally known for being directly correlated with a spike in violence against women (where, by the way, he shared the stage with a naked beauty pageant), and pretend that's okay. Who voted against legislation to support equal pay. Who doesn't know how many houses he owns, and who tells those who can't afford health insurance to go get another job that pays better and has benefits.

Given the level of institutionalised racism in American politics and American life in general, I think it's more likely to say that McCain was helped more by his skin colour than Obama has ever been.

 

[reformer]

sound,well i defended all those apart from protectionism which leads to

lost jobs-people not having as much discretionary spending power within their country leading to less manufacturing/service jobs within said country

higher prices cause many times we are left with a monopoly in said country as opposed to letting the markets dictate prices.

higher taxes on imported goods again taking money out of the pockets of you and i.

 

[Vinnie]

So are you sincerely positing the argument that Barack Obama does not possess a single electable quality save the misguided support of hipster white liberals and that anyone who votes for him does so merely out of concern for the latest democratic ethnic fashions? That's your argument, right?

well your gonna love this so-i believe the only reason obama has gotten to the stage hes at is precisely because hes a black man.all the bleeding heart liberals automatically assume theyre being cool and ultra-hip by voting for him,if he was the exact same person but white he wouldnt have beaten hilary.
did i just confirm your suspiscions!?

and i do like mccain a lot,he should have won the republican nomination back in 2000,i just hope now he has he can finish the job.

 

[jane]

right i cant remember all your counter arguments,ill try address the ones i can-iraq?what would you do?pull out immediately leaving a vaccuum into which al queda/whatever terrorist group would step?i disagreed with the war from the off but now that its happened they do indeed have to stay the course.
trickle down effect-tell the people of eastern europe they havent gotten richer since the fall of communism and their joining the eu.look at chinas growing middle classes.
lower taxes means more money in peoples pockets,what can they do with this?spend it and so give a boost to the economy,reinvest it in the hope of gaining more money or else indeed save it.what else they gonna do?

And what about those people who don't make enough money for those lower taxes to mean much to them? For the people that maybe don't even make enough to pay taxes? With such a low tax-take, where will the money be for programmes to support the poor to get out of poverty? Obama's plan is to reorganise taxation so that the highest earners pay more tax. That's how you trickle shit down.

How about health care? Who is going to pay for health care? The under-resourced public school systems? The Federal School Lunch/Breakfast programmes, which for some of the poorest kids, is their only proper meal of the day? For Head Start programmes, to help make up some of the huge gaps in early childhood education? For caring for the elderly?

You can't budget long-term for vital programmes based on the fickleness of the private consumer.

That tax cut plan has actually never worked in reality. It's helped boost the people who already had a boost, but it's never helped the people at the bottom of the ladder. If anything, it's made a lot of people even more vulnerable than they otherwise would be.

It was Reagan's plan, and it was the final nail in the coffin of the working class in America, who, while never prosperous, were able to look after themselves and their families until he came along with his pathetic little trickle. It didn't work. At the end of his presidency, we had a major recession, which was continued through Bush's term, and only was relieved under Clinton. Clinton, who balanced the budget, which Bush pretty much immediately unbalanced. The country has generally done better financially under Democrats, who are not the tax-vacuums they are accused of being, but certainly Republicans like to forget that.

As for Iraq, what does 'stay the course' mean, in your own words? Obama's plan is not for immediate withdrawal, although I saw a very interesting plan about two years ago, from Alexander Haig and a few other military experts, who suggested that, in fact, pulling out as soon as possible, so long as it's done wisely, is actually the only way to help Iraq get back on its feet. You can leave a country militarily, while still trying to support people in the country.

What course do you think should be stayed? Iraqis are not all idiots who would fall victim to the first door-to-door Al Qaeda shyster as soon as the Yanks turn their backs. No one is saying that everyone should come home on the same plane, the day after inauguration.

The republicans of the old school are turning in their fucking graves right now over McCain. I did also hear that my normally very conservative aunt and uncle in Alabama are not only voting for Obama, they're working on his campaign. For serious. Dyed-in-the-wool republicans took the punk stew and are slouching towards optimism.

 

[broken arm]

lost jobs-people not having as much discretionary spending power within their country leading to less manufacturing/service jobs within said country

These are all reasonable fears but theory doesn't always reflect reality and there are always contradictions.

(simplistic analogy)

The World Economic Forum places the US at the top of the global competitiveness index while Sweden with a comparatively hefty tax take is 4th http://www.gcr.weforum.org/ and sweden is an export economy.

In the 2005 Economist magazine quality of life index (even though it was much derided) Sweden ranked 5th with the US on 13th.

Sweden ranks lower that the US on the so called economic freedom index - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom_2003-2006

Also, part of the problem for workers in the service economy is that the sector is global and not dependant on local spending power at all.

 

[jane]

sound,well i defended all those apart from protectionism which leads to

lost jobs-people not having as much discretionary spending power within their country leading to less manufacturing/service jobs within said country

higher prices cause many times we are left with a monopoly in said country as opposed to letting the markets dictate prices.

higher taxes on imported goods again taking money out of the pockets of you and i.

I think it's not really up to you whether you defended your points. Do you have your own words, maybe made into sentences? I don't see any reasonable argument among your points, only half-regurgitated Reaganomics. Do you have anything else, or have you shot your load?

Do you know that more people lost jobs under Reagan than under Clinton? People are losing jobs now. People are losing their houses, and their cars, and gas is like 4 bucks a gallon, and many of these vulnerable people also live in shitty exurbs with no public transportation, and no viable alternative to get to work -- they aren't comfy middle class people who can just move to a more convenient location.

Do you know that higher profits for major corporations means outsourcing manufacturing to poorer countries, and thus no manufacturing jobs in the West? Do you know that when we only outsource to poor countries, when those countries use that money to stop being so poor, we can't afford their services anymore and we're all kinda fucked? Already China is becoming more expensive, and so all those ethics people put aside for the sake of 'the economy', that was a bit of a lost cause.

Do you actually know anything about the United States? Have you ever been to some of the staggeringly poor parts of the country, where people genuinely have to choose between taking their kid to the doctor and buying groceries for the MONTH? Where the young male population of a town is decimated by the Iraq war? Where the young population can't make enough to survive, let alone get an education that will lead to a better life? Where the old or the sick are suffering needlessly because there aren't enough resources? Where most of an entire generation of homeless dudes are war veterans whose thanks for serving their country was to be fucked up for life?

The definition of stupidity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. The Republicans have tried it multiple times, and we're worse off than ever. Trickling down doesn't work. Shit is a solid. It don't trickle unless it's diarrhea.