There are no easy answers to these questions.

On the one hand you don't want Iran to build nukes for obvious reasons, but Iraq did send a message that the US will only attack countries who can't defend themselves. Ex. North Korea If history has taught us anything, putting your head in the sand can lead to dangerous consequences. Tough choice.

Iraq was a mistake and you can never justify the loss of soldiers lives there. On the other side Al Queda has been weakened while fighting there and again there hasn't been an attack on American soil since 9/11. Coincidence or not?

Russia- Georgia has been a huge ally to us, so you can't just sit back and do nothing. On the other hand, they aren't completely innocent either.

I don't see things as black and white/right or wrong. It is just a matter of seeing both sides.

In the end, McCain isn't Bush, just like Obama isn't Clinton. Same party but different people with hopefully a different way of doing things.

One could also argue that there is no need for Al Quaeda to carry out other attacks on US soil. They've already achieved their goal getting the US to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. And they have not been weakened, not one bit.


Ponrauil

Well said lol :D

Their goal is to kill, and you can't honestly think that it hasn't been attempted here since 9/11. Bush is an idiot. I don't disagree. But he has managed to keep it off of US soil thus far.

in the last 7 years al qaeda have killed more americans than they did on 9/11

i wouldn't even say it was the education. when i 1st started uni and even well into the 2nd half of the course i was sick to the teeth of "socialists" prattling on about the bourgeoise' and proletariat.

it was travelling that turned me around. seeing new cultures and meeting people from all over the world opened my eyes to the fact the little englander mentality is a stupid, misguided and downright wrong one.

It's the saddest thing to realise how many Americans look up to that shit.

Godknows a crappy leader often rules a decent, honest people, but for the same party to be invited back time and again speaks badly of countless millions of individuals.

The Times yesterday stated 80% of American mothers approve of Palin. Are there really only 20% who can actually ****ing think independtly? I really am starting to believe so. Even if you think Obama's unqualified/naive/whatever, forgodsake, spoil your ballot, vote Green. Anything.

Jim: post of the year.

possible JT award at the end of the year? :D

i jest. i did get really worked up about this last night. i have friends both in real life and over the web and it pains me to see their country sold down the shitter by the oblivious masses. on another politics board i post on it's VERY partisan and as soon as i mentioned i have a polisci and history degree including a shitload of stuff of geopolitics, IR, global terrorism and politics of the US these people round on me as if i'm some elitist wanker with no real life experience.

it seems they genuinely have an issue with people who are informed on the matters of which they are not.

These two paragraphs are the crux of the argument. Which is why McCain is running (ostensibly) as a maverick or an independent AGAINST the Republican Party. The trouble is, he may sound like an independent sometimes but he has voted right down the line with the Republican Party all along. Right now, when running for election, it suits his purposes to distance himself from the last 8 years. Even he must realize that some people are not going to vote for 4 more years of the same.

These two paragraphs are the crux of the argument. Which is why McCain is running (ostensibly) as a maverick or an independent AGAINST the Republican Party. The trouble is, he may sound like an independent sometimes but he has voted right down the line with the Republican Party all along. Right now, when running for election, it suits his purposes to distance himself from the last 8 years. Even he must realize that some people are not going to vote for 4 more years of the same.

So unless people agree with your side they don't think independently? Has anyone stopped to think why so many Americans do not vote Democrat? There lies the key.

Mouse:You said that a lot nicer than I was planning to.

Some of us really don't like the Democrat platforms, and as much as we think the Republicans have diverged from traditional conservative values, we prefer the remaining slim shadow of those values to their antithesis as embodied by the Democrat party. The Republicans stand for a whole bunch of things truly conservative people disagree with. The Democrat party stands for just about everything truly conservative people HATE.

Adrian

I think Jim was talking about the great number of women who will vote for McCain because they like Palin. It's shocking to me how many women appear to be on the Republican side now because McCain chose a possible woman VP. When in reality, she's all about taking away a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body. Oooh, she has five kids, well then she MUST have what it takes to be a VP. Amazing really.

Everyone wants to talk about Obama's supposed lack of experience, yet say they support Palin. I demand to see her senate voting record...oh wait...

Granted, I think Olberman is a douche but this is very interesting. Just "pray away the gay" I can't imagine that there are people in this country who will actually vote for someome with such extreme religious views.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=...e-4ac68a5b9cbc

From BBC:

It has been a week since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was catapulted from relative obscurity to centre stage as US Republican John McCain's choice for running mate. Here *edit* is 1 thing we now know about her.


8. She was baptised a Catholic as an infant but attended a Pentecostal church in Wasilla - her hometown since her parents moved to Alaska from Idaho when she was three months old - for many years. She now attends Wasilla Bible Church, a non-denominational, evangelical church. The Associated Press reports that the church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.

I despair.
Please dont let this woman any where near the White House !!!

Research the church Obama belonged too. If you want to trash Palin on hers, I have no problem with it. But take a look at the other side too.

i think a black pastor has much more reason and legitimacy to say that whites shit all over blacks than someone who could potentially be the leader of the free world saying alaska has been predestined as the place to be once the raputre comes.

bible literalists really are mental. the only difference between her and the mad old guy who stands in the middle of buchannan street in glasgow on sunday mornings telling everyone that they're going to hell because of their drinking and fornicating the night before as foretold in the bible is that she has a captive audience and more worryingly, power.

She may currently hold crazy personal beliefs, that has not yet been fully ascertained. Anyone and everyone is entitled to HOLD beliefs. Whether or not she's acted on them or will act on them is another story and THAT is what we should judge her on, from a religious perspective.

There's quite a bit of difference between believing that Alaska is going to be the vacation hotspot during the end times, and agreeing with someone that we deserved the 9/11 attacks and that the lyrics of God Bless America should be changed to God D*mn America. One set of beliefs is harmless but kooky, the other is evil and NOT befitting a man who could one day (God forbid) be president.

Adrian

Is there something i or anyone else would find shocking about the church he belonged too then? ivd had a quick look but couldnt see anything nasty like the gay hating church of Palin.

Thank you Jim. The church that Obama ONCE belonged to at least has history to back up their claims. The difference is that Palin is a member of this church TODAY and judging from her previous comments, her beliefs are in line with theirs.

JBJEveryday: Rev. Wright has history to back up his claims you say? Like the claims that the US government is giving drugs to black people to keep them in poverty, or that they are responsible for the 9/11 attacks? What do you know that I don't, and where can I go to learn these facts?

Adrian

Adrian,

In my previous post, I was talking about the "anti-white" comments made by Obama's former church in the past. I am not one of those white people that believe that blacks are always looking for "handouts" or for a way to buck the system. I try my best to view everyone equally regardless of race, sexual orientation etc. This is why I have a problem with anyone claiming that the "power of prayer" can turn homosexuals into heterosexuals or that this awful war has been "God's will."

If you wish to compare that to Obama's church's stance on black people in poverty, go ahead but in my opinion, you're comparing apples and oranges.

About how the US government would do anything to control drugs and oil... you could start here:




Ponrauil

There's a difference between crazy praying for gays and saying that we were responsible for and deserved 9/11.

No, I'm not comparing, I'm pointing out the cognitive dissonance in the belief that Obama's church can say the most vile shit imaginable and it's ok, and Palin's church can say some wacked out stuff and it's the apocalypse.

Ponrauil:There's a difference between CIA agents dealing drugs as part of an investigation (or doing so illegally) and saying the federal government has been dealing drugs as part of a decades long conspiracy to keep black people in poverty.

Adrian

You're right, there's a huge different between doing and saying. And I hope you see that difference as clearly as I do.

And it's not just drug dealing, it's drug dealing control. And on the long run it concerns a much broader population than just black people.



Ponrauil

Time to fight fire with fire. Here are some wacky pseudo-religious quotes from leading Democrats! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's expressions of true horror and condemnation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"I cried all night. I'm going to be crying for the next four years," he said. "What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation's political history. ... The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance."

-- Jesse Jackson Jr.

‘‘A leader God has blessed us with at this time.’’

-- Nancy Pelosi

He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

-- Michelle Obama

"Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

-- Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn)

"What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history"

-- Jesse Jackson, Jr.

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

-- Barack Obama

"Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?"

-- Daily Kos

"He communicates God-like energy..."

-- Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)

"Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul"

-- Commentator @ Chicago Sun Times

"I'll do whatever he says to do. I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear."

-- Halle Berry

"A quantum leap in American consciousness"

-- Deepak Chopra

"He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century."
-- Gary Hart

"Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence."

-- Eve Konstantine

"This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament." | "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event."

-- Chris Matthews

"[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time."

-- Toni Morrison

"Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves."

-- Ezra Klein

"Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind."

-- Gerald Campbell

"We're here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth."

-- Oprah Winfrey

“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan."

-- Bill Rush

Adrian

Adrian, although most of these quotes are indeed laughable (you might have noticed that a few of them are not even close to being God related), they are praising a man and/or a situation and hopeful. They are not, unlike the religious right wing, discriminating anyone, they are not trying to scare or exclude anyone.

That might explain why one side comes across to many as more open-minded, therefore less dangerous, than the other.


Ponrauil

Thank you Ponrauil. I couldn't have said it better myself. This is my personal favorite. :)

He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

-- Michelle Obama

Granted, it is from his wife but I'm confused how this is negative or how it could possibly be used as a slight aganist Obama.

There's a difference between crazy praying for gays and saying that we were responsible for and deserved 9/11

There is? One is saying that being gay is WRONG and anyone that is better change otherwise they are going to hell. This belief looks to be shared by a church that Palin is a CURRENT member of. The "we deserved 9/11" quote, which I believe I first heard back in late 2001/early 2002 when it was said by Pat Robertson, yet another crazy religious moron who also believed being gay was WRONG, was said by the pastor of Obama's FORMER Church. I hope you see the difference in these two.

I have yet to see any elected official who has strong religious beliefs, no matter what religion they may be, being able to keep those personal beliefs out of office. Bush is a perfect example of this when he vetoed a stem cell research bill TWICE on the grounds of morallity. Having strong beliefs in any religion is fine. I could care less what these people believe on a personal level. It's when they want to govern the whole country by those beliefs, I have a problem.

I haven't read the thread so I apologise in advance if this has already been said...

I was told by someone in my class today that apparently a few people tried to murder Obama a week ago or summit? Sounds like some sorta media crap to me, you guys heard about it?

And there are Mr. Obama's associations. Let's start with the infamous Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Mr. Obama expressed shock that Rev. Wright would say things like "God damn America" and say the American government created AIDS to commit genocide against black people. Yet he belonged to that church for 20 years. He was married by Rev. Wright, had his children baptized by him, and even took his book title from one of the good reverend's sermons.
When Rev. Wright's outrageous diatribes surfaced, Mr. Obama refused to renounce him. Then when Rev. Wright repeated the same statements at the National Press Club, and Mr. Obama had clinched the nomination, suddenly he denounced him. Why? He said Rev. Wright's statements in D.C. were unlike anything he had heard before and he was shocked. But those statements had been in the news for months. Are we to believe that Mr. Obama had not read or heard any of the news for weeks? Or that he never heard anything similar in more than 20 years of listening to Rev. Wright's sermons? Hmm.



The American government created AIDS to commit genocide against black people? Yes, this is the church that Obama belonged to for 20 years. First, lets cut the FORMER church nonsense. It doesn't take a mental giant to figure out that he had to leave the church once he was nominated for president, which is the ONLY reason he left. These views are nothing short of extreme, and he abandoned them only to suit himself and this election.

Palin is showing her true colors, like them or not. Obama is hiding his, and this is what I have a problem with.

To lighten the mood:

http://www.peteyandpetunia.com:80/VoteHere/VoteHere.htm

I love these!

No matter what you hear it WAS NOT ME. :D

Mousebounce covers the FORMER church thing nicely just behind my post.

Yes, the stem cell research veto was stupid. But Christians in government are far less of a threat than the left-wing media would have you believe. Show of hand here folks: Who in their heart of hearts honestly believe the government has a snowball's chance in hell of criminalizing abortion or homosexuality? If you do, I've got a bridge in New York you might be interested in...

Adrian

plenty of them are having a good shot at keeping gays as 2nd class citizens and both mccain and palin have stated they want to overturn roe v wade. it wouldn't surprise me if they did make a concerted effort to do it even if it was through covert means such as influencing tomorrows voters in the churches and classrooms. we know this already goes on, they could easilly ramp it up a notch.

as for being dangerous, the current christian in power is waging quite the war against people of another religion. oil was obviously the biggest reason, fighting terror probably appears somewhere on the list but we all know there are ALOT of folk in america and in government that are happy that this particular war is killing lots of muslims.

As a long time democrat Im not voting for Obama mainly for the above reason, if u hear Obamas rev speak (its on u tube) thats enough for me, he says a hell of a lot more than that, its shocking..... some of those pulpit speeches must be inside Obama's head over the past 20yrs... Im not taking a chance on that.... its all just an act..... Obama talks but doesnt actually say much....

Dawn

they never got close....but a few men were arrested.

Dawn

Maybe he needs even more cowbell?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ma_Cowbell.gif

Off topic: Alex, that is my FAVORITE episode ever! I love it!

Maybe they WANT to overturn roe v wade. Like I said, there's no chance of that happening, and even if, EVEN IF they managed to, there's no way it would ever be followed. Abortion is here to stay, and it ain't going away. Ever.

As far as keeping gays as "2nd class citizens" that's another non-issue. Gay marriage has been spreading at a state level and more and more companies are issuing domestic partner instead of spousal benefits. When you look at the last 8 years under a "conservative" administration, has the gay rights movement made more or less progress?

That government shouldn't be in the business of approving ANYONE'S marriage is another topic entirely...

Yup. Our governmental officials are in this to kill muslims. That's the dirty little secret behind our foreign policy. No misguided belief in taking the fight to the enemy or securing American interests overseas or halting the spread of terrorism - it's all about killing muslims. Got it.

Adrian

given who much disdain you have for the powers that be you seem pretty willing to swallow the "we're fighting them over there so we don't need to over here" line pretty well...

not that i need to remind you but iraq was never a threat, never housed al qaeda and never had weapons that would be of any threat to the US.

iran falls pretty much into the same boat.

north korea on the other hand...

i'm not saying theyve made a conscious decision to go in and kill muslims en masse but that IS what is happening and there are plenty of people in the corridors of power who will be smirking themselves to sleep over this. it's a convenient by product of this conflict and there is a sizeable number of republicans on another board i post on who are literally wetting themselves with excitement at the prospect at another war with "dem iranian sand niggers" and more than a handful of them said they'd be perfectly happy to nuke the entire middle east if given half the chance.

i'm confident these are not isolated incidents since i know plenty of fairly moderate righties who echo the same sentiment because theyve swallowed the GoP mantra hook line and sinker.