I would say Ron Paul has given his life in service to the idea of freedom. he returns a portion of his pay to the treasury every year and risks assassination if he gets to the white house, I think hes done quite a bit.

how do his interests lie in corporations?




Obama Appoints Monsanto's VP as Senior Advisor to the Commissioner FDA, Donald Rumsfeld gets aspartame approved for human consumption and god only know what other backroom deals have been struck where the only winners are those doing the regulating and the only losers are the people and the environment. Not to say the FDA hasn't done some good but I don't think they deserve any awards thats for damn sure.

If there were less regulations the free markets would put companies with no regard for the environment out of business because people wouldn't buy their products.



Obamas a smooth talking douche, Ron Paul has the voting record to prove he sticks to his guns and follows his convictions, he doesn't tell people what they want to hear like everyone else.

"If there were less regulations the free markets would put companies with no regard for the environment out of business because people wouldn't buy their products."

This has been proven to be false. This is a lie perpetuated by the corporations who rape the Earth and kill humans and animals and environments and markets at will, and repeated by the political pawns of these corporations. Most regulations are designed to protect people against corporations and their practices, but regulations can be bent to do the exact opposite. This does not mean that all or even most regulations are bad or should be taken away. Hell, the financial mess we are all in right now is a direct result of taking away certain regulations that protected the markets and kept the financial institutions in check.

Please...just lay off the rhetoric...the idea that he risks assassination (moreso than any other public figure) is a joke. From who? His corporate puppet-masters? Give me a break

Miakuye already rebutted the deregulation point...look around you! The global financial crisis was CAUSED by deregulation, so was the BP Gulf Coast disaster, so were numerous other catastrophes. Open your eyes...since Reagan we've seen the detrimental impacts of deregulation. If you choose to ignore that, it behooves you to recognize you are missing HUGE and vitally important pieces of the socio-political story here.

Ron Paul's record also shows that he takes corporate funds that contradict many of the positions you claim he holds...yet you refuse to acknowledge this and pretend like somehow that has no bearing on anything. You can rail against wars that are fought for your benefactors all you want...it doesn't make you any less complicit in them.

I find it kind of sad that so little people believe in democracy anymore. I also have my doubts about the system. There´s a lot of things going terribly wrong, and the democratic system has turned into a cynical powergame. But i think that the biggest problem is cynisism itself and not the principle of democracy. I don´t see how any political system could work when the people in charge are corrupt or lack spine.

Democracy isn´t some sort of holy principle like many people (mainly politicians) pretent, but would any of you rather have your right to vote taken from you?

The thing is:many people are cynical, selfish, short-sighted or just dumb or misinformed. But if you don´t believe in people at all, that people are wise most of the time, i don´t see how you can see any light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the good things about democracy is that no-one ever is in total and absolute control. There are some powerfull people who pull a lot of strings, but nobody pulls them all.

Some people can get away with the worst kind of things: i mean, look at dominique strauss kahn...the police and prosecuters all know that he´s a serial rapist, but nobody has ever been able to touch him. But i do believe that most of the people like him, and maybe he as well, will some day be brought to justice.

Some of them ofcourse always manage to get away with whatever they´ll do. But look at places where democracy is totally absent...things are definately far worse there. In china we would all be hunt down and put away in brainwash-camps simply for debating this issue. In russia, saying that putin is not the second coming and the greatest man alive can cost you your job and sometimes even your life. I also don´t think that anybody here would want to live in north korea or saudiland. And the stuff hapening in syria is just too terrible to even think about, it´s just sick what´s happening there, or in nigeria or waziristan or yemen for that matter.

I think we ought to be gratefull for what we have. There´s a lot of stuff that realy needs to change. But that doesn´t conrtadict any of that.

^^ yep.

As said yesterday in another community thread, when GW Bush made his way into the White House while his brother held Florida votes hostage, it was pretty obvious that the system was dead.

And the punchline is, should any regulations pass through, they will be managed by people whose election has been funded by corporations and private interests. Democracy, as is, is bunk - but at least it's a lesser evil.

What I find depressing is people totally buying into the system propaganda. We are in a restaurant where we can have poop with potatoes or with rice, and there's still too many people who believe they can order lobster thermidor.

I say we hold an American Idol type televised contest for the next President. And only people 18-25 are allowed to run, and the home viewer pays $2.99 to call in their vote. There will be a singing competition, a bathing suit strut, a hotdog eating contest, and each candidate would have five whole minutes to say their platform, but they'll have to give their speech dug up to their neck in the ground next to a fire ant colony, y'know, just to keep the ratings up for this election . . .

I think the winner of my televised crazy election would be more effective than anyone who has occupied the White House in recent memory.

That would definately be refreshing. I think that many presidents would have passed this test though, without much dificulty, if only they where a little younger.

Wow. What a solid political argument. Instead of Harvard Law graduates lets vote in kids American Idol style via txt message. I don't even know where to begin...

but its no fun without one of those water tank dunks! somehow that must be fit in there...In conjunction with underwater basking weaving perhaps?

but in maxx's defense (but that was just a joke guys...right?..or am i missing something..) i know many people around the age of 25 who are far more intelligent than any of the puppets in this race

anyways as i already said, i suspect what we are going to see regardless of who gets elected is: more of the same

Pretty much. Anyone who thinks the US President is the 'guy in charge' is delusional. He's a figurehead.

I, Pet Goat II by Heliofant

I've watched a cavalcade of criminals one after the other occupy the white house ever since I can remember. I would have to agree with a1pha that the presidency is a figure head position in many ways, but it also carries with it a lot of power. To illustrate my observation here of 'cavalcade of criminals' I present the following:

The first president that I had a vague recollection of was JFK. He was killed, I was a kid, and I grew up with the illusion that he was great. The country deeply mourned his assassination and I remember the sadness. However after looking beyond the childhood fantasies about JFK I can state the following:

Under his watch, Vietnam was heating up. After he was killed the Gulf of Tonkin incident gave justification for another criminal, LBJ (Lyndon B Johnson), to escalate that war into a tragedy of enormous proportions that makes Iran and Iraq look like toy soldier games. I want to remind you that these two 'war happy' dudes were democrats and were the figureheads in charge of tens of thousands of dead men who were drafted into the war. No, they were not allowed to choose to participate in that quagmire of death.

After that was Nixon, I remember watching the daily news to images of bombing and killing over in Vietnam. The death toll rose to around 50,000 young guys dead, one of them my step mom's brother. This went on intermingled with the Apollo space program and the televised moon landing. What a dichotomy! I awoke from my childhood into the unfolding scandal and crimes wrapped up in the name "Watergate".

The only thing that I am grateful for was that Nixon, et al., under tremendous pressure from the actively protesting citizens (literally millions) of this country ended the Vietnam war in time for me to not be drafted. People were killed by the police protesting this war at incidents such as Kent State University. I would have gone to Canada if the war had persisted.

Somehow conveniently, another criminal named Spiro Agnew was forced to resign from the vice presidency because of charges of extortion, tax fraud and bribery (good material for leadership by today's standards). Gerald Ford assumed the vice presidency through the application of the 25th amendment unelected by the electoral college and nominated by Nixon himself. It is really convenient for 'Tricky Dicky' that he actually got to select his successor who pardoned him from his despicable crimes against the country. These were republicans who are supposedly so morally correct.

Then we had a real ho-hum dude for a president that I remember almost nothing about at all. It might have been all the cannabis that I smoked during his term in office which was the time I was in High School. Why do you think that they called it high school? During this presidency the economy sucked, interest rates got to about 20%, and we had the Iran hostage situation which lasted 440 days or so. At the time of the Peanut Farmer's departure from the white house, the Ayatollah Khomeini, et al., released the hostages fearful of being nuked possibly by the next warmonger/criminal who steeped into the presidency.

Ronald Regan, deified to the level of God by many of today's conservatives, invented the term 'trickle down economics'. It used to be a joke at the company I worked that the management's outhouse was on top of the worker's outhouse and that the only thing that would trickle down was brown or yellow.

Reagan was truly impressive. He brought more criminals into high places than even did Nixon. All told there were 138 convictions according to this => source and others. Believe it or not, one term of this criminal was not enough for America and he was reelected.

The Iran Contra affair occurred later in the second term and Caspar Weinberger, Reagan's Secretary of Defense was to be tried for these crimes. Fortunately for him the White House is the penultimate "good ol' boys" network. The republican George H.W. Bush was elected and conveniently pardoned yet another executive level criminal from facing a court and a conviction. Under G.H.W. Bush, we had wars, a lack luster economy, and more of the same.

After him came the democrat "Slick Willy" Bill Clinton. Bill supported foreign wars such as the Somalia battle, and the Bosnia war. Bill Clinton was also trying to capture our friend Osama Bin Laden and never did even though he attempted his capture multiple times. There were several other military actions that this president was behind. It seems that no president is immune from whipping out the big guns, planes, ships, and missiles.

After that, Slick Willy was tried at an impeachment hearing for lying about having sexual relations with a page named Monica Lewinsky back in 1995-1998. When word of this got out, this caused a political explosion on capitol hill that resulted in a tremendous waste of time lame duck session impeachment proceeding that overshadowed most of Clinton's second term in the white house. The sanctimonious Congressional Republicans lead the charge to remove Clinton from office, even though many of them were among the same implicit criminals from the Reagan administration who had not been caught. Somehow by a 55/45 margin the senate voted that "Slick Willie" was not guilt of obstruction of justice and perjury. However, he left his mark on that Blue Dress... a real keeper for sure.

I don't want to leave Bill out of the criminally complicit crowd that has preceded him. His last hurrah was to pardon 141 criminals on his last day in office. They were special people like Hillary's criminal brother Hugh Rodham.

After Clinton comes in my humble opinion one of the stupidest guys to ever sit in the Oval Office. It appeared that George "W" Bush was operated much like the puppet Jerry Mahoney was by Paul Winchell back in the 1960's TV program having had a hand stuffed through his rectum and into his head to move his mouth. No wonder "W" had that look in his eyes almost all the time like he was always was squinting into the sun.

"W" was proof positive that the presidency is a figurehead position. Nobody that dumb could have done all the damage that "W" did to the economy, the reputation of the United States with much of the world, or as a champion of freedom and liberty.

With "W" his puppeteers were the dastardly Carl Rove and the megalomaniac Dick Cheney. Other than being a bad shot, Dick was most likely the mastermind behind the Afghan and the Iraq Wars so that he could build up the riches of his friends at KBR (Halliburton) who had a sole-source contract with the federal government. With these goons in charge and the complicit Senate and House we got such nice laws as the Patriot Act. With all of the deregulation starting with Reagan, continuing with Clinton, and persisting with "W" and his handlers we got the economic collapse of 2008 which was the largest theft in history.

The republicans cry "class warfare" when it comes to regulating banking and securities, but when the "little people" who are not in the millionaires club start trying to get back was stolen from them in these economic bubbles, the millionaires start screaming "class warfare" How hypocritical!

Now we have had 4 years of Obama and little has changed. Sure he was handed a bunch of problems at the onset of his presidency. The war was done in Iraq, and we were being tossed out by the Iraqi's so it was convenient to withdraw. The patriot act continues to be strengthened in its force and in its ability to trample our constitutional rights. Homeland security, started by "W" is not being dismantled but further funded. You are looked upon as a criminal when you elect to not be exposed to cancer causing ionizing radiation in those back scatter machines which basically strip you naked for someone to view.

We are faced with yet another election where we are given the choice of no real choice and that is why I went to all this trouble to write this. What do you all think? Do we really have a meaningful choice even if we have a 'vote' when it is between a democrat or a republican?

I want none of the above, but it wont happen!

Like George Carlin said, "It is all bullshit and it is bad for ya."

A very wise person once told me that every country deserves the government they have and that also apply for presidents. I think that this statement is spot on.

Please do not ask me to elaborate on this as it is self explanatory. Or is it not ?

That statement is way too reductive and generalizing, it levels all of a country with the lowest common denominator, and is unfair. If the system is flawed in the first place and regardless of who you vote for, you are screwed, how can people really "deserve" it? If only there was a choice in the first place.....

I wouldn´t say that it doesn´t matter who becomes president. There are clear differences.

50 years ago, the richest 1% of the population owned 10% of the national income. Today it´s 40% of the GDP. Romney wants to further the trend and make it 50% or preferably even more. Obama wants to turn those figures around but only slightly, so that the richest people don´t get too upset. So there IS a difference.

The reason why men like obama cannot go further than making only very moderate changes, btw, is that many people don´t vote.
By saying 'i´m not voting, because it doesn´t matter who i vote for', you only make it worse and it becomes a self fullfilling prophecy: the right wing fanatic´s have a relatively large say in american politic´s because they all vote. Moderate and liberal people are the ones who don´t vote, so therefore the moderate and liberal politicians will have to become more and more like the republicans if they want to stand a chance in the first place.

Cynicism feeds cynicism.

As long as people dont have a say AFTER they vote and the supposed "representative" of the people does not fulfill his promises and cannot be held account for it, it doesn't really matter much who you vote for. All of them go for corporate interest/lobbies.

People need a voice in the process, not just to elect a little bit more or less pleasant puppet of either side at some purely symbolic part of the process

Also, democracy as thought in our society is the dictatorship of "50% + 1", it is not really democratic. Politics needs to be a more interactive process, and technologies should be a part in bringing people more connected with decision-making and general ethical direction of our collective endeavors

If ever you would decide to give politic´s a try, and you would want some things to realy change, you would soon or later find out that if you don´t do the dance with at least some of the lobbygroups, you won´t raise enough money to be able to get even through the first rounds. That´s a moral dilemma that´s not easy to dismiss. It´s sad but true.

I tend to compare it to people in nazi-occupied europe, like the famous mister schindler (but there where many many more people like him) who co-operated with the nazi´s so that they could save as many people as possible. They had to make their hands dirty and where often hated by their community who didn´t know they used their position as a friend of the nazi´s to help smuggle people out of the country, destroy public records, pass information to allied forces or resistance groups, and do other things to hinder the nazi´s.
To be able to do this work they had to play along with the nazi´s in many ways: visit their party´s, lecture´s, having dinner with them or sometimes even having a sexual relationship with some high nazi chiefs.

The general attitude towards politic´s and democracy is responsible for the 50% plus 1 attitude you mention. It´s a cultural phenomenon. It can change. If people are in touch with their hearts, they will put the general interest above their own, they will respect other opinions and try to reach out to others and see if solutions can be found.
Democracy depends on those simple little things, like not believing everything (or nothing at all)a politician or lobbyist says, but checking facts.
Cynicism that has taken over the public debate, prevents people from doing that. It doesn´t help. There needs to be an open 'let´s educate ourselves' attitude (checking facts, getting yourself informed, etc). That´s the kind of cultural background in wich democracy´s can actually thrive. We´ve had some of such cultural episodes in the past. There´s no reason to assume it couldn´t happen again.

Go to election and give vote to someone who you think can change something is only a waste of time. If you want a change my friends , if you want to really make a change you have to start with your self. Live your life as best as you can. Help people around you, be kind and humble, be example to everyone. This way you can change the world around you. You do not need politicians to do this.This is the power we all possess but many of us can not see.

This is the way I feel now and I do not expect everyone to understand.

I do not expect.

Just give your self a big fat vote.

Will the president change anything when so much policy comes out of the pentagon and from the lobby?

Obama stayed on the same course George Bush did in so many ways.
As if he even had a choice.

It is like voting for a shape in the clouds and saying that the shape controls the weather...

I dont agree with you. In fact, I think believing voting does anything is just giving the system more power to continue to do the same. It's pseudo-voice, imo it's just as bad as believing you cant do anything.

I think smokerx has the key there.. Politics is not something you do when voting once every couple of years, it's not just what happens inside the official political system, it's rather about human relationships in general happening in daily life.

I dont believe voting affects anything significant, hence why I mentioned that changes must be way deeper. This does not mean that one shouldnt do anything.. I think the 15-M in spain and occupy movement might have shown a glimpse of something new that can come. I believe these joint political actions hold much more power when done continuously than any occasional voting ever can.

Who says you can´t do both?