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dieselbenz · by **dieselbenz** on Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:37 am

Ralph Nader enters presidential race ...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/24/ ... index.html

anticapitalista · by **anticapitalista** on Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:45 pm

Good news!

"Dissent is the mother of ascent," he said.

malanrich · by **malanrich** on Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:15 pm

Good news indeed...for John McCain.

anticapitalista · by **anticapitalista** on Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:24 pm

"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form."

-Nader in the link in the first thread.

Sakasa · by **Sakasa** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:29 am

When will it change?

As long as any person wishing to become president accepts most funding for his/her campaing from corporations rather than from the people than the president can become a tool of corporations and tends to look more for the benefits of corporations over to benefits of the people.

It will be better to have each person of this country to contribute to a campaing at least with a dollar and this money to be divided equally between those going for the presidency, than allowing most of the funding to come out from corporations. This way the president will have the only choice to benefit the people first than the corporations.

I will add up something else:

Each runner should have a signed contract of what it is that he is going to change if he takes over the presidency and if this contract is not follow he must leave the presidency withing a short time.

This way we would not have a type of tyranny for an entire of 4 years. Example: We have a president now that has put this country in over 2 extra trillion dollars in debt in only 8 years. It took over 200 years to have 1 trillion dollars in debt. Also if more than 75% of the people of this country do not want a war is'nt that a tyranny ratherly than a democracy and it is totally against the wish of the voters? I belive we could it take the 2 trillion dollars to have free acess to health care and to diminish most of the poverty of this country. Even Killing someone for a noble cause it is never a noble cause. I could be wrong but this is my point of view.

Excuse my English here as you all know my English is very bad. I do speak better than I write but I try.

anticapitalista · by **anticapitalista** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 2:07 am

Don't worry about your English sakasa, it is just fine.

I totally agree with your first paragraph. For us living in Europe, the US Presidential elections are seen as a bit of a farce. It is obvious that you cannot become the President of the USA without huge amounts of financial backing and that is why the choice of a winner is going to be Republican or Democrat, which again to many if not most Europeans, isn't much of a difference.
A Blue Tory or a Light Blue Tory. :-)

I also totally agree with your final paragraph especially this part:

"Also if more than 75% of the people of this country do not want a war is'nt that a tyranny ratherly than a democracy and it is totally against the wish of the voters? I belive we could it take the 2 trillion dollars to have free acess to health care and to diminish most of the poverty of this country. "

That's why I think Nader standing is important. At least he raises these issues, even if he hasn't got a hope of winning.

Sakasa · by **Sakasa** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 2:58 am

anticapitalista wrote:Don't worry about your English sakasa, it is just fine.

I totally agree with your first paragraph. For us living in Europe, the US Presidential elections are seen as a bit of a farce. It is obvious that you cannot become the President of the USA without huge amounts of financial backing and that is why the choice of a winner is going to be Republican or Democrat, which again to many if not most Europeans, isn't much of a difference.
A Blue Tory or a Light Blue Tory.

I also totally agree with your final paragraph especially this part:

"Also if more than 75% of the people of this country do not want a war is'nt that a tyranny ratherly than a democracy and it is totally against the wish of the voters? I belive we could it take the 2 trillion dollars to have free acess to health care and to diminish most of the poverty of this country. "

That's why I think Nader standing is important. At least he raises these issues, even if he hasn't got a hope of winning.

I made a little research on I Ralph Nader and he seams to be the right man for now, under the present system wich has become more important than the individual. Until we all learn that systems are never to be put on first, before the individual, when we accept something as a system then we are accepting an authority, a power, a controller, then the individual becomes the sacrificer. We must all change inside if we really want changes. Changes in society heart and mind is the key to open the new doors. The past will always interfere with the truth of the present, the past is never a solid truth, because life is constantly changing. We must throw away everything from the past in our minds and our heart in order to really make a total change. So far no system, no law, no party has been able to fix human suffering and abuse. Each individual must have a pure will to direct themselves to change because we are also at fault because we are also this society and it is never to blame others but to look inside and change so that through our own changes without interference from any system, persons, past, desire etc... then our kids, neighboors, friends, enemies, goverments etc... can really change. We are society and is not a part that it is apart from us.

Thanks for your Info and I do agree with you.

malanrich · by **malanrich** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 3:35 am

I wonder if this will sound odd, uninformed or heretical--but the rest of the world (and Americans too around this time) forget that, on the whole, the President of the U.S. really can't do very much. And it's not because he's bought off by corporations; it's because the system of government (checks and balances, the three branches of government, institutional lethargy, etc.) just ties him up into little knots.

The problem is that campaign rhetoric keeps this fact hidden. Of course, "America" does things (internally and on the world stage), but it's because the whole temper of the country moves in that direction, regardless of what vocal minorities suggest. Presidents who seem to have done a lot just had the knack for running out in front of a parade that was marching down the street anyway. I'm guessing that, even if Al Gore had won the last election, we'd be pretty much in the same state we're in now. We'd be in Iraq (only Gore would be complaining that "my hands are tied" or "there are certain realities governing the situation...").

And if Nader were to somehow win, we'd have four years of seeing how impossible it would be for him to do much of anything--proposals would be bottled up in congress, presidential directives would be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Etc., etc.

I'm not completely cynical. I do think world change is possible, and that to some degree American policies have something to do with that. My only point is that the American president has almost nothing to do with *real* change in American domestic or foreign policy. Actually, this is good news. If your guy wins it means he can't do a lot of the stuff you like; but if the other party's guy wins, it means he can't do a lot of the stuff you hate. Sometimes, paralysis can be a good thing.

mariel77 · by **mariel77** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:38 am

malanrich wrote:I wonder if this will sound odd, uninformed or heretical--but the rest of the world (and Americans too around this time) forget that, on the whole, the President of the U.S. really can't do very much. And it's not because he's bought off by corporations; it's because the system of government (checks and balances, the three branches of government, institutional lethargy, etc.) just ties him up into little knots.
[ ... ]
I'm not completely cynical. I do think world change is possible, and that to some degree American policies have something to do with that. My only point is that the American president has almost nothing to do with *real* change in American domestic or foreign policy. Actually, this is good news. If your guy wins it means he can't do a lot of the stuff you like; but if the other party's guy wins, it means he can't do a lot of the stuff you hate. Sometimes, paralysis can be a good thing.

You are absolutely correct about the system of checks and balances. What you have said here is just right. What we forget is that Congress is the body that actually decides if the US goes to war or not; the President can't go to war by himself or at least not for any length of time. It was Congress that decided nearly unanimously to go into Iraq; I'm sure no one thought we would still be there now. Congress also makes the laws and determines the budgets. All the President can do is try to convince Congress to do what he wants done and veto anything he hates. If he does a good job of convincing, then it looks like he accomplished a lot.

And I do not think you are cynical; you are pragmatic.

Sakasa · by **Sakasa** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 5:32 pm

Excellent vision Malanrich and mariel77! I do belive this is a corporative democracy ratherly than the way a system democracy suppose to be.

eriefisher · by **eriefisher** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:52 pm

I think the problem is with the whole US system. The corperations control the polititions by funding pet projects in exchange for favourable votes in the senate or congress. The average joe has little or no say in the US, even at voting time.

They seam to have some kind of electoral system where a chosen person has the vote and not the tax payer.

It may be true that the US might still be in Iraq if Gore were elected but the fact is that I think the are there under false pretenses. Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 by UN investigator reports and never had any WMD. That leaves only one thing, OIL, and this is the responsability of the tax payer to solve. It is a strange coinsidence that the Bush family and assosiates are in the OIL business though.

For the Iraq problem to be solved correctly it should have been done the first time they were there and actually had world support and a valid excuse for being there.

eriefisher

malanrich · by **malanrich** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:02 pm

The funny thing about Americans (maybe humans in general) is that we're passionate for change until we actually get some, and then we back-pedal furiously. The first thing we want in a candidate is an advocate for change, but when real proposals for change arrive we get hysterical. "Change" normally means higher taxes, another war, a freeway through your backyard, utopian but massively ineffiicient urban planning, mindless tampering with the educational system...

To be really honest, what Americans want as an authentic third party is not the POC (Party of Change) but the DN's (the "Do Nothings"). Come to think of it, a candidate who promised to just Do Nothing might get my vote.

The redeeming factor in all this is recollecting that true change comes from people getting their minds and hearts wrapped around new concepts they can implement themselves--first on the personal micro level; later on the macro societal level.

Here's one sharp example: I believe that future generations will look back at the time of Open Source/Linux development as a moment of huge historical importance. No politicians, no grand bureaucracies...just a worldwide harmonization of individuals working slowly toward the realization of an ideal. For little if any pay, for little public recognition. But the effect--still modest, but gaining momentum--has been a change almost inivisible to popular culture, on the level of what my marxist friends call "deep structure." Think of it this way: It's the first time *ever* (I think) that we have made technology do what we want it to do, rather than us doing what technology wants us to do.

That's a real paradigm shift. And it has been (almost) completely independent of the political system that any particular Linux community finds itself situated in.

moron · by **moron** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:56 pm

.........

moron · by **moron** on Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:56 pm

moron wrote:
malanrich wrote:T
The redeeming factor in all this is recollecting that true change comes from people getting their minds and hearts wrapped around new concepts they can implement themselves--first on the personal micro level; later on the macro societal level.

Here's one sharp example: I believe that future generations will look back at the time of Open Source/Linux development as a moment of huge historical importance. No politicians, no grand bureaucracies...just a worldwide harmonization of individuals working slowly toward the realization of an ideal. For little if any pay, for little public recognition. But the effect--still modest, but gaining momentum--has been a change almost inivisible to popular culture, on the level of what my marxist friends call "deep structure." Think of it this way: It's the first time *ever* (I think) that we have made technology do what we want it to do, rather than us doing what technology wants us to do.

That's a real paradigm shift. And it has been (almost) completely independent of the political system that any particular Linux community finds itself situated in.

Here! Here!

Sakasa · by **Sakasa** on Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:36 am

Really outstanding opinions and views from everyone here!

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Excellent vision Malanrich!

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