-Savant
________________
12 hours ago__________
Actually, there are all sorts of laws to stifle third parties in America.
You say you voted for Obama because Romney was even worse. Others say they voted for Romney because they found Obama worse. And some ''Republicans'' or other rightists voted for Obama because they have this motto that worse is better.
I guess Americans have become very defeatist...
Well, at least there are also folks who are too proud and did not play along at all or voted for a third party knowing how much the Republican and Democrat party suck, can't really say that I blame them. I can respect that.
Those who voted for a third party already knew they wouldn't stand a chance, because there are way too many sheep-like folks and defeatists in America. But what the hell.
If we had a parliamentary system of proportional representation as in Europe, I might have gambled a vote on Jill Stein, leader of the GREEN PARTY.
For a while (starting in 1990s) there was an American Labor Party that I would have been happy to support, and which I joined briefly.
But they had no way of breaking through the the two party duopoly.
Some people--not I--would vote for a Libertarian Party led by Ron Paul if it were possible.
I just told you that I'd gladly vote for a labor or green party.
But all are excluded or marginzlized. I know some members of the left (where my sympathies are) like Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Cornel West stated that they would not vote for Obama, but Romney was even more out of the question.
Chomsky suggested that in those Blue states like Mass (or my state, Maryland), progressives should vote for Jill Stein. But that in CONTESTED swing states or red states, they should vote for Obama as the lesser of two evils.
Some leftists argued that regardless of red or blueness of the state, one should just hold one's nose and vote Obama--but only as a vote against Romney.(They reasoned that punishing Obama by not voting or voting green would mean giving Republicans the edge in a tight election. And ultimately, it would be working people, the poor, peoples of color and women who would really be punished, and Romney and rightitst plotocrats and racists who would be rewarded).
I've no doubt that American rightists could give you a similar story from their perspective. For them Romney would have been the lesser evil.
It isn't that Americans are sheep, but that we have so little to choose from, so few real options outside the given status quo.
-Savant
____________________
I watched Romney and Obama at some Catholic even in NYC, and listening to Romney speak was scary. In a room full of rich people, he let it out a bit more than usual... what an arrogant elitist PIG who actually does believe that 47% of the population are subhuman!
Romney may not be classified as far-right, and the Tea Partiers and “conservatives” don't like him, but he appeared in many ways to be more dangerous than even the Pat Buchanan types. A corporate clone, beyond left-right politics, just pure corporate. The Borg.
I am SO glad he did not win election to the Presidency.
-Barros Serrano
__________________
Your description of the difference between the mainstream American and European electorate is quite interesting.
Sir,
It's rather easy : the "mainstream" in the E.U. is far more centrist or centre-left than the US voting mainstream. Romney and the Republicans are seen here for what they are : far-rightists and the union of the super-rich. Nobody can be elected in Europe with a Romney platform saying : the super-rich must be richer, the poors have to get poorer. Plus i increase the military and i'm ready to go at war to please Netanyahu.
Not a single politician can get a majority or a significant vote in the E.U. with this type of political (insane) program.
Mormon Mitt got 48% of the popular vote with this pure garbage : we can see a huge difference between the USA and the E.U. there.
Media analysts have all stressed that the 2012 elections are showing a growing discrepancy between the white male voters and the rest of the US voters. They stress the short victory of Obama is relying on a coalition of "Minorities", in particular the Hispanics, and the women. They predict some fights and bickering inside the Republican party between those who will keep on the Reaganian-Tea-partier trend and those who realise it's a recipe to lose the next elections in 2016.
You're correct that the legal end of the W tax cuts is giving a leverage to Obama on the red(neck) House.
On the other hand, is there a real possibility against the Disenfranchising laws in red states ? i would have thought that the US Supreme Court, basically red, is the only "safety" net but so far the Court endorsed these laws. What is Obama allowed to do in this field regarding states ?
a whiteboi
A PART of the American electorate is intuitively center-left (though not as left) like the Europeans. Another part is further to the right of the European electorates, with some as far right as those "nasty white nationalists" of Europe whom you mentioned earlier.
The polarization here is unbelievable. A little before the election Rick Nagin, an obviously leftist author of DEMOCRACY AT THE CROSSROADS, claimed that the divide between the "extreme right" of the Republican Party and the "Obama coalition" (all Nagin's words, not mine) was such that the 2012 election was similar to the election which led to the presidencies of Abe Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt. I guess Rich Nagin can rest easier now that Obama won.
But just before the election he stated that a rightwing nightmare, a plutocratic corporate fascism, would have happened if Romney won.
While I think Nagin maybe exaggerated, he may have been on to something.
At least for the time being, the FAR RIGHT has been stifled. But for how long?
-Savant
_______________
It was obvious to me as soon as Reagan was elected that his goals were not to clean up a few inefficient social programs... he wanted to roll back any progressive change which had occurred since Abe Lincoln, basically.
Well some Republican lawyers are trying to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Without the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Republicans in the South might be able to resort to more aggressive voter suppression than they've attempted already.
Without the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there would be no Barack Obama anyway.
They want 12-yr-old white children in sweatshops, they want blacks picking cotton, they want the Natives all dead, they want f'ing feudalism if not slavery.
Reaganomics... needs to be discussed more. Even Bill Maher and others of such ilk refer to the “problem” as having been caused by “8 years of Dubya”. NO! That is a shallow interpretation. The PROBLEM began with REAGANOMICS in January, 1981.
-Barros Serrano
________________
4 hours ago_______________
Well, at least the Right lost some seats in the Senate and House (though Republicans still have majority in the House).
Sir,
i agree on your analysis.
There was a real danger to have Mormon Mitt in the white House with the power to launch a war and putting the Executive force to back the "protofascists" as you say.
Naturally it makes a difference but if people had some illusions in 2008 they cannot have any in the context of 2012.
We're most likely to have more 2010-2012 going on in 2012-2014. i doubt that the Reps will change significantly or they can split into several factions and one moderate faction could vote compromise with the Dems ?
Hermann Cain is calling for a 3rd radical reactionary party : we'll see ; next step he will campaign for Jim Crow to be brought back or a Confederacy ... who knows.
a whiteboi
Obama could simply allow the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire whether the Republicans cooperate or not.
Hopefully, he will do at least that. If Obama can get out of the Afghanistan war without getting into another war, then that would be a worthwhile achievement. He has some politial capital with his Tuesday victory, though nothing like what he had going into 2008. At the very least he should resolve to do no harm.
It is interesting that he got only 39% of the white vote, a drop from 43% in 2008. Yet he won anyway, both in popular votes and in the electoral college.
We're still trying to sort through the meaning of that, and its implications for the future.
By the way, what is the French press saying about this? Why is Obama even now (or so I read) more popular in Europe than in America?
-Savant
_____________
No comments:
Post a Comment