American Presidential Elections

[IconOfEvi 0]

Yikes, think of the Skype costs.

[Rattuskid 0]

ACORN employees re-registered people already on the roster (this is rather easy to convince someone to do 'just to make sure') to vote, and in some cases fabricated applications because ACORN pays them for number of applications. That's their fiscal loss, and in truth that doesn't equate to people voting multiple times if only the ACORN organizer is in on the misgivings. It's twenty years in jail for what, one more vote?

 

Besides, they're only hated when they fight against you, right?

 

At a 2006 rally in Miami, ACORN featured a friend who now seems surprising: McCain. As a senator, he was pushing an immigration reform bill supported by ACORN and other progressive groups. ACORN members waved "McCain '08" signs at the rally as McCain said, "What makes America special is what's in this room tonight. That's what makes America special."

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=95696267

[IconOfEvi 0]

And You've highlighted a reason I hate McCain. And yet you wonder why I'm not voting for President.

[usafirewarrior 0]

I don't like either of them and i don't belong to either party ...that being said i'm not voting.*Real truth is i don't want the slim chance of being stuck with jury duty :lol: *

Edited October 30, 2008 by usafirewarrior

[Monkey 0]

I don't like either of them and i don't belong to either party ...that being said i'm not voting.*Real truth is i don't want the slim chance of being stuck with jury duty :lol: *

 

Just drop a couple n-bombs when they ask. That's my plan, anyway.

[Korona 0]

Only to have the old white judge whisper "get that guy on the jury, he has the right ideas", and he starts doing KKK hand signals to you as the case goes on.

[IconOfEvi 0]

I would try to interpret them! Would be lol. :)

 

EDIT - I wish I could get shamans to back me.

Edited October 31, 2008 by IconOfEvi

[Mehman 0]

Holy shit, South Park was right!

[Korona 0]

What do you all make of the disconnection between what Iraq vets are saying in ads and what they say in more informal interviews:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/...008/7693987.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7610237.stm

 

?

[Logan Hartke 0]

I go entirely off of what they tell me.

 

Logan Hartke

[Korona 0]

Which is? It seems to me like politicians like McCain are talking up the war saying not to sell out the troops, when in reality the guys on the ground are just as disillusioned as the public at large.

[IconOfEvi 0]

Funny, I could have sworn someone was telling me earlier that you don't judge the entire group (ACORN) by what supposedly a few members are saying/doing (defrauding the election)...

 

Then again, I suppose the minority is the majority when it suits the end purpose?

Edited October 31, 2008 by IconOfEvi

[Logan Hartke 0]

I live in a community that is about 75% military in a state that's always contested (Florida) and the state, as a whole, runs about 50/50. We're about half and half in the state and I know that almost all the people in my community are very conservative. They may not be all pro-Republican or pro-McCain, but they're definitely for finishing the job in Iraq and are very anti-Democrat for talk of pulling out.

 

I have family in the military that tell me that they're always getting emails in their work inbox that are pro-Republican or very anti-Democrat. Never anything from the other direction. The military is, by and large, very conservative and very anti-pulling out of Iraq.

 

I have a former teacher back in Illinois that served with the IL National Guard and has had like 3 tours in Iraq that I spoke with at length about the situation over there and his feelings on it. He's always been a diehard Democrat, socially conservative but very economically liberal. He just told me how furious the Democratic Party was making him over constantly wanting to pull out before they've done their job. If they pull everyone out before it's stabilized, it will all have been for nothing, and nobody likes that.

 

Logan Hartke

[IconOfEvi 0]

CHANGE!! (maybe not so much...)

 

PROPOGANDA CHANGE!!

 

CHANGE!! (shut up, I CAN pay for it!)

 

CHANGE!! (everybody can be rich under me!)

 

CHANGE!! (SHUT IT, I CAN pay for it all!!)

 

 

 

and last but not least...

 

 

I have a song for America...

[Korona 0]

Well those soldiers weren't saying to pull out either, they just weren't the stoic-yet-idealistic conquistadors like the media in the US seems to like to portray them to the population at large. I've always found the image of soldiers in dramas like Generation Kill to be at odds with that portrayal anyway but it just disturbs me to see this kind of stuff. I know we treat our soldiers like shit in the UK but idolising them seems just as troubling, especially when this fiction is used as part of the rhetoric regarding the future direction in Iraq.

 

I dunno that Obama is really the right target for the ads anyway, his position afaik is withdrawal of the troops by 2011, which (assuming the Iraqis don't force them out sooner) is what the Bush administration wants... It doesn't sound like cutting and running, more like the unwelcome guest who refuses to leave. At the same time he has been bullish about Afghanistan. His views pretty much mirror what the Pentagon wants.

 

@Icon, Obama is over-hyped? No shit. I don't think stating the obvious really needs Supersized Bold Type

I actually liked the advert. The Times article is acting like they were forced to watch it. Was it too much to just turn the TV off, they knew how long it was going to be, but if they did that then I guess they couldn't bitch about it :P

Bah they have gone downhill since Murdoch took them over. What rubbish journalism.

[BlckWyerve 0]

The Times was never good.

[IconOfEvi 0]

Thats like saying /b/ was never good.

 

Wait, fuck, thats true!

 

Scratch that. The latter is true - /b/ was never good. :ph34r:

Edited November 1, 2008 by IconOfEvi

[Rattuskid 0]

Funny, I could have sworn someone was telling me earlier that you don't judge the entire group (ACORN) by what supposedly a few members are saying/doing (defrauding the election)...

 

Actually, they're just defrauding ACORN because of the signing bonuses, false or more often than not, duplicate registrations don't translate into someone voting for all those extra registrations.

 

If they pull everyone out before it's stabilized, it will all have been for nothing, and nobody likes that.

 

That's repeated a lot, but I doubt if it's true. In a lot of ways, American or in general, Western presence is what keeps foreign fighters motivated enough to come to Iraq. Without us, those leaks in the border may trickle out, then Iraq is left to it's own devices.

 

The possibility of a civil war really was averted by Patraeus, and just because not all violence has stopped doesn't mean it's not stable now. It's the mid-east for crying out loud, it's like expecting the Balkans to entertaining comprehensive peace.

 

The difference with Vietnam was it was an active civil war we joined on the losing side, not just general chaos we were a third party too. I don't think even Iran has as much of an urge to invade and take land as the NVA did. Everyone is only at the party because they think they can hurt us there.

 

If we coddle Iraq's government when they should have been much more ready already, they may never be able to defend themselves.

[IconOfEvi 0]

Firstly, the reason we won is twofold. Petraus is one side of a coin - the other was al Queda. Al Queda made life so unbearable that the various militias and populations (especially the Sunnis) in Iraq reached out to us, and we listened and worked this time. We cleaved off AQI and JAM's unwilling allies since 2006. With the change in our strategy, which became true counter insurgency, where guns are only ever the last resort, in a sense, it might be premature to say we've won, but hell - it's looking a lot like it. We have gone from enemy number 1 to basically impartial mediator - mostly everyone can trust the Americans, since they will look at all sides fairly and won't take sides. And while its a dangerous (I suppose) statement to make, many, many Iraqis would rather have the US run Iraq than the government. We're the people who get things done, who are fair. Yes, we made mistakes, we nearly lost - we know that. Iraqis know that. We got the second chance. Now, alls that needs to be done is the political side of things.

 

As for the inevitable Vietnam comparison...all I have to say is this. Is Syria sending their army through Jordan to attack our troops and then retreat over the borders where we can't get them? Are we basing B-52s in Israel, occasionally sending them on Damascus to remind them they're being naughty, stopping when we actually achieve anything? Is this Iraq where all domestic militias we're under control by Syria and wiped themselves out in a nationwide offensive in 2005, but we're able to hold onto Kirkuk for a month?

 

All no's (except for the first, a slight). Iraq is NOT Vietnam. We fucked up Vietnam bad. And I would like to address the myth of the South Vietnamese government that no one wanted for a second, that they all really wanted their northern brethren. If it was so unwanted, how come it held on for years after America pulled out, and even stopped giving any form of aid at all? Why is it that no one fled in boats from South Vietnam? Why did you see masses of people fleeing? Why did whole units fight to the death?

 

If anything, what Iraq is is a chance to set the past right.

[Korona 0]

Talking about Iraq in terms of victory and defeat is dangerous. So many people are dead, how can that be considered a "victory"?

Keep in mind when talking about the surge and the genuis of the military minds in Iraq that another major, or maybe even the greatest reason for the decline in violence is that the Iraqi's killed all the minorities in the mixed neighbourhoods (or forced them to move).

 

In terms of Vietnam, people not fleeing/units fighting to the death proves nothing about the goodness of the government. Look at how fanatically the Germans fought for the Nazis in the Götterdämmerung. Security forces are loyal to even the most despicable governments. Unthinking morons are everywhere, much of the time the government they unthinkingly love more than life itself is evil.

[IconOfEvi 0]

Look, I'm trying not to say the over cliche'd line that freedom/revolutions, any change in form of thinking requires blood. Yet, we needed a revolution of blood to sever ties with the British Empire. And we again needed blood to eliminate slavery and sort out many other issues that had come to a head (if those other ones aren't entirely solved). You can think of it as a sacrificial pit, and the people have a goal - a national union. The people could have talk, which would take years, decades, centuries, millenia even and never entirely solve problems, or they can sacrifice blood and lives at the now and have the issues somewhat, or even more or less fixed. Sometimes the result is not as we planned (Prussia in both spirit and physicality has been mostly destroyed, banished from Europe, and the German psyche and land), sometimes it is (slavery is no longer an issue in the United States except by way of a few people who agitate for reparations). While a lot of the bloodshed can be blamed on us before 2006, since then, Iraq has more or less become peaceful, thriving.

 

Yes, there is a lot of work to do with refugees, but it's already happening. Neighbors are coming back. Neighborhoods are repairing themselves. If I take a random look on the BBC Middle East page, why, nothing on Iraq! The only thing, a series of pictures, shows a successful counterinsurgency. If anything, they show now what must be done from the IRAQI government, the SHEIKS who run the villages, what must be done from their side. It is irresponsible to think the whole Iraqi government is corrupt, however, quite a lot of it is. With more people (including all the Sunnis this time) voting in 2008 (I think), we'll definitely see a better government. While I too say on one hand its premature to say we've won, I will say this - when most people say they want the US running the show instead of the Iraqi government, it tells you something, namely your success.

 

 

-------------------------

 

 

Security forces are loyal to even the most despicable governments. Unthinking morons are everywhere, much of the time the government they unthinkingly love more than life itself is evil.

Haha, you really should talk to a Vietnamese veteran of the war sometime. Very interesting. I will say unthinking is the last word to characterize these guys.

 

As for Germans fighting for Nazis - in a sense, thats true (and can be characterized more in the SS/Waffen SS than the Heer), however, ask German vets and they say what has been quite often said of these forces - they we're fighting for Germany itself. At this point, Hitler didn't really matter - the Allies we're on German soil in the end, thats why they fought so fanatically. If you take this line of understanding, that in the end, they get rallied by defense of the homeland, not the leader, than you can understand how both Saddam and the Ayatollah emerged more popular from the Iran-Iraq war than when they had started as not popular leaders, on the brink of counter-revolution. Iran and Iraq attacked each other in the cities, in every way possible, yet these invasions into the homeland only bolstered each population. Do you really think Iraqis and Iranians had any overwhelming love for the Baath and the Ayatollahs, respectively? Both we're on the verge of being overthrown.

 

Also, You're not addressing the other part of the question about Vietnam - why did people only start to flee when the communists took over, from both the North and South? In fact, USA plays host to huge populations from all over Indochina who left and continue to arrive since the Communists took over. Wisconsin for example is home to (I think) the largest Hmong population outside of Indochina.

 

As for the government of South Vietnam, while some measure of corruption would always characterize it, by the end (1970-1975), it increasingly became better - indeed, they finally adopted for example, land reforms we had always urged South Vietnam to enact. Headmans schools for village headsmen/women. And contrary to rumors, in the latter years, after the coup, SV was democratic. It had hiccups and problems (like Diem manuvering for power after Tet). Yet, Around the end, people knew the future could be good, if they could stop the NVA. They couldn't, because we cut off the aid tap, while the North had a bolstered one from both the USSR and PRC.

 

Think of it this way - during the Tet Offensive, no city or village EVER defected to the NLF. Despite a nationwide attack, and a planned uprising by the South Vietnamese people (one which even both hippies and generals here thought would happen too), the opposite happened - people took up arms against the NLF (who we're from the South, so technically not foreign invaders). They only ever also held onto Hue by force. After Tet, the NLF ceased to exist (this was in 1968 mind you). So what does that tell you about the war? That somehow to this day people believe we we're beaten by peasants with black pajamas and sandals and that South Vietnam likewise willingly fell to these folks because they wanted to be united with their brethren is ludicrous. Its a travesty against history.

Edited November 3, 2008 by IconOfEvi

[Windows V 0]

That's repeated a lot, but I doubt if it's true. In a lot of ways, American or in general, Western presence is what keeps foreign fighters motivated enough to come to Iraq. Without us, those leaks in the border may trickle out, then Iraq is left to it's own devices.

 

The possibility of a civil war really was averted by Patraeus, and just because not all violence has stopped doesn't mean it's not stable now. It's the mid-east for crying out loud, it's like expecting the Balkans to entertaining comprehensive peace.

 

Wow. Congratulations, you just singlehandedly reversed my opinion on what America should do in Iraq now. :mellow:

 

In terms of Vietnam, people not fleeing/units fighting to the death proves nothing about the goodness of the government. Look at how fanatically the Germans fought for the Nazis in the Götterdämmerung.

 

No one's saying that anything about the goodness of the government, just its popularity. Conventional wisdom portrays the RVN government is hated by all but a handful of French-educated Catholics, but it's never that black and white. The people who left Viet Nam after its fall weren't all members of the RVN military or government. The government was not all democracy and apple pie, but then, neither were the governments of Taiwan and South Korea at first, amirite?

 

Yet, we needed a revolution of blood to sever ties with the British Empire.

 

Not really. Did Canada need a revolution? No. Americans just got spoiled after years of the mother country being nice to them and when it came time to repay that goodness, they split.

 

(like Diem manuvering for power after Tet)

 

Wait, which Diem? And which Tet?

 

That somehow to this day people believe we we're beaten by peasants with black pajamas and sandals and that South Vietnam likewise willingly fell to these folks because they wanted to be united with their brethren is ludicrous.

 

WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree.

 

Oh and IconOfEvi, since when did you stop remembering the difference between "we're" and "were"?

Edited November 3, 2008 by Windows V

[spyvspy 0]

Not really. Did Canada need a revolution? No. Americans just got spoiled after years of the mother country being nice to them and when it came time to repay that goodness, they split.

 

 

Wow, some very fertile ground for historic fiction there. What if America had remained a quiet colonial client under the British model? America as an agricultural exporter, capitive market for the industrial output of the mother country. No Civil war, no expansion west, no development of industrial production (it would have been competition.)

[Rattuskid 0]

Wow. Congratulations, you just singlehandedly reversed my opinion on what America should do in Iraq now. :mellow:

 

I'm sorry, after years of pointless internet debate I have to assume this is sarcasm, and I apologize if I'm wrong... but if you meant this, I sure as hell shouldn't have changed your mind, it just means you read the wrong editorials.

[Windows V 0]

I'm sorry, after years of pointless internet debate I have to assume this is sarcasm, and I apologize if I'm wrong... but if you meant this, I sure as hell shouldn't have changed your mind, it just means you read the wrong editorials.

 

Oh, I was being totally sincere. I've been part of the "we won't come back till its over over there" camp for quite awhile now, but you're right, currently Iraq is a lot better off than it was in, say, 2006. Maybe it is time to pull out.