2012 presidential debates

[chenGOD]

IN the early 19th century, the United States was one of the most egalitarian societies on the planet

 

 

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE

 

It was very egalitarian.

The slaves were all equal, the poor were all equal, the rich were all equal.

 

 

and then there were women

 

[SR4]

lol jesus didnt realize it caught on that quick!

 

IN the early 19th century, the United States was one of the most egalitarian societies on the planet

 

 

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE

 

It was very egalitarian.

The slaves were all equal, the poor were all equal, the rich were all equal.

 

 

and then there were women

 

 

fuck if that is even true. you had "honorary white men", ie. free blacks that supported the slave system in Texas and other Western territories (this is actually true. I know it sounds like complete horseshit, but as they say, "first tragedy,..")

[chenGOD]

lol i was being facetious, obviously, but who said only black people were slaves?

 

;)

[Guest nene multiple assgasms]

[joshuatxuk]

obama: blablabla science

 

romney: blablabla god

 

not really paying attention.

 

and yet there is a compromise

 

what a fucking lying asshole. are politicians not even trying to appear truthful anymore? holy shit. i'm so angry.

 

it's exactly why I'm avoiding it as much as possible (though I backslide a bit today)

 

the rhetoric is often beyond lying - it's doublespeak, hypocrisy, and blatant falsehoods tailored into vitriolic zingers with a few choice buzzwords or allusions and spoon-fed to the American public - it's the same dialogue and the same narrow views rehashed into two choices

 

and while the Dems drive me nuts, and I'm the first to call them out on their own bullshit, they are no where near as cold and calculated as the GOP when it comes to their electoral tactics presently - they are ousting decent and intelligent Republicans from office in primaries left and right for having remotely moderate records or willingness to compromise on legislation - tea party alternatives are plentiful, and they have plenty of money at their disposal and too many constituents ready to vote them in to "restore liberty" or "fight washington" or for some other vague, populist platform they've bought into. it's all anger and no thought

[chenGOD]

there is no compromise.

 

[Guest A/D]

The world should be able to vote in this election. Can't believe it's up to our retarded asses. You'd see some third-party action then.

 

Smetty, no offense, but I think the failure is your unwillingness to look more deeply. Neither the Tea Party nor Occupy has failed. I can't even imagine how you would make standards to say they have failed. You're talking about something complex & evolving as if it was history.

[chenGOD]

I think he's saying the Tea Party failed because it was originally presented as an alternative to the two-party system (and it certainly was) but was subsequently bought out by monied interests.

 

The Occupy movement is a bit trickier to pin down as a success or failure, but it's difficult to see any real change which has arisen as a result of their actions. I went to (an admittedly very early) town hall meeting, and it was a complete nightmare, the worst caricature of a hippy love-fest that you can imagine. I understand that they have become more organized in the past year, but as I said, it's difficult to see any substantial change that has arisen as a result of their actions. However, one positive that i feel arose out of the Occupy movement was that it showed there is still a substantial percentage of the American population who cares about the current direction of the socio-economic environment and that with just a little prodding and information, the desire to create change can be effected, at least at the local level initially.

[Guest A/D]

Oh, I agree. I think the biggest thing Occupy has done concretely is the 99%/1% branding. Which is genius. And I do see progressive political candidates take up their causes on local levels. But yes, hard to point to policy changes. I had a similar experience to you at an early General Assembly.

 

Real movements take years to get to that point, IMO. This time is formative. But they are absolutely getting organized & growing. I'm looking forward to everything they do, even their inevitable gaffes & misfires. I firmly believe they are on the front lines of the war for this country.

[vamos scorcho]

That's a really good point. People said Occupy was worthless... look how much it has affected the rhetoric.

[J3FF3R00]

That bullshit from Romney about how having 2 parent households would fix the gun violence problem boiled my blood.

[awepittance]

However, one positive that i feel arose out of the Occupy movement was that it showed there is still a substantial percentage of the American population who cares about the current direction of the socio-economic environment and that with just a little prodding and information, the desire to create change can be effected, at least at the local level initially.

 

exactly, and as someone as cynical and hopeless as myself about what Americans care about and prioritize it was a huge wake-up call. It injected me with sort of a 'new hope' no pun intended about what could be done to turn things around in this country. Only seeing it from the ground did i realize this wasn't a trivial thing.

[awepittance]

That bullshit from Romney about how having 2 parent households would fix the gun violence problem boiled my blood.

 

I think it was a huge miscalculation on his part, there are plenty of reasons beyond amorality or bad choices that would cause a single parent or mother to raise a child. Huge fuckup imo, it seemed out of the 1980s republican play book.

[lumpenprol]

Hate to say it but...Obama still looks like a shell of a man. Clint Eastwood must have done some voodoo to suck the soul out of him, he had trouble stringing together sentences, and sat down on his stool the whole time Romney was pacing the floor. Romney's on fire.

 

Shit.

[syd syside]

 

[SR4]

That's a really good point. People said Occupy was worthless... look how much it has affected the rhetoric.

 

I didn't say it was worthless, I said it was a failure.

 

I would be happy to admit I am wrong in the coming years, believe me.

[joshuatxuk]

 

 

 

 

[sweepstakes]

BINDERS

[syd syside]

That's a really good point. People said Occupy was worthless... look how much it has affected the rhetoric.

 

I didn't say it was worthless, I said it was a failure.

 

I would be happy to admit I am wrong in the coming years, believe me.

 

So success is a complete revolution/change of government institutions and their structure (two party system)... hundreds of years of tradition... and you expected Occupy to do this all within one year? Lol

[SR4]

That's a really good point. People said Occupy was worthless... look how much it has affected the rhetoric.

 

I didn't say it was worthless, I said it was a failure.

 

I would be happy to admit I am wrong in the coming years, believe me.

 

So success is a complete revolution/change of government institutions and their structure (two party system)... hundreds of years of tradition... and you expected Occupy to do this all within one year? Lol

 

Im surprised you expect Occupy to do it at all. I am not surprised, unfortunately, that members of the Occupy movement somehow believe they are the arbiters of such complete and total change. If there is a revolution, Occupy will not bear sole responsibility for it. I hate to disappoint you. Everyone seems to believe that Occupy is this monolithic game-changing strategy of political and social protest never before seen on earth. I'm glad people are paying credence to it, but I've dealt with enough of the nuts telling me that unless I join their tent village in Baltimore that I'm "part of problem", and that they and only they have the ability to really change things. It's a disturbing hive-mind us and them mentality thinly veiled by spurious ideas of thirteen year olds spouting shit out of an anarcho-collectivist pamphlet they picked up at Red Emma's, convinced that they alone have stumbled onto the guiding light of perfect and objective knowledge.

 

Your post is a great example of this mindset, you mock my response instead of understanding the frustration at unnecessary extremism overriding a genuine ability to convince people to the cause. I'd venture a guess and say you are much more akin to the Baltimore occupy'ers than whatever more reasonable group Awe was a part of.

[sweepstakes]

Whoa, that post confused the shit out of me.

[SR4]

good

[awepittance]

i wasn't part of any group, i'm pretty opposed to being part of any particular protest group from a personal standpoint overall. What i found fascinating about the occupy movement not necessarily organized 'occupy groups' was it's autonomy, and that at the very least the May Day shut down of downtown oakland was one of the most organic and motley crew-ish protests ive ever seen. Families with kids, dance parties, anarcho types, hippies, street kids, old people who were reinvigorated like they hadn't been since the 60s. I could see how any one of these groups could irritate even the most passionate radically left liberal activist, but to see them all together in harmony was seriously a beautiful thing. That's what gave me hope, and i don't think it was a fluke, which continues to give me at least a glimmer of hope to the future. You could argue that because the police almost murdered a veteran in front of hundreds of people that caused such an overwhelming response later, but it was more than that.

[syd syside]

That's a really good point. People said Occupy was worthless... look how much it has affected the rhetoric.

 

I didn't say it was worthless, I said it was a failure.

 

I would be happy to admit I am wrong in the coming years, believe me.

 

So success is a complete revolution/change of government institutions and their structure (two party system)... hundreds of years of tradition... and you expected Occupy to do this all within one year? Lol

 

Im surprised you expect Occupy to do it at all. I am not surprised, unfortunately, that members of the Occupy movement somehow believe they are the arbiters of such complete and total change. If there is a revolution, Occupy will not bear sole responsibility for it. I hate to disappoint you. Everyone seems to believe that Occupy is this monolithic game-changing strategy of political and social protest never before seen on earth. I'm glad people are paying credence to it, but I've dealt with enough of the nuts telling me that unless I join their tent village in Baltimore that I'm "part of problem", and that they and only they have the ability to really change things. It's a disturbing hive-mind us and them mentality thinly veiled by spurious ideas of thirteen year olds spouting shit out of an anarcho-collectivist pamphlet they picked up at Red Emma's, convinced that they alone have stumbled onto the guiding light of perfect and objective knowledge.

 

Your post is a great example of this mindset, you mock my response instead of understanding the frustration at unnecessary extremism overriding a genuine ability to convince people to the cause. I'd venture a guess and say you are much more akin to the Baltimore occupy'ers than whatever more reasonable group Awe was a part of.

 

I mock your response because Noam Chomsky has said similar stuff about protest movements dealing with these topics and how anyone expecting real change over night, in a year, in a couple years, maybe more is delusional. You seem so quick to want to label something that is still evolving. That's my main problem with YOUR attitude. You act as if you know the future, all I am suggesting is that you don't.

[SR4]

edit: response to awe

 

i think thats just where you and i differ, not in the overall aims of it, but the process of organization. im much more of the type that gets pissed off about how occupy is portrayed in the media by focusing in on the very few extreme elements within it...same with the WTO protests those years back, the Battle for Seattle, etc....my whole thing is sort of the Black Panther idea of disciplined protest. It in effect requires an almost quasi-fascistic centralization* and strict unified declaration of goals, so that there is absolutely no confusion as to what the objective is. When you have different competing ideologies coming to the forefront and that competition ends up taking precedence over the actual short-term major goals that all parties are unified behind (anarchy v. communism v. democracy v. decentralized republicanism v. libertarianism and on and on ad nauseum), the movemtn loses most of its inherent effectiveness.

 

The reason I hold the Progressive era as a great example of organized success in America is precisely because each interest group was highly organized, and rarely made the bickering over ideology or fringe issues the main construct of the group. The NWP was there to get women's suffrage. Period. The Child Labor Union organized to end child labor. Period. Anti-War Union picketed to end foreign intervention. Period. And on and on and on. And again, you can debate how successful each of these groups were in ultimately achieving their goals, but there is absolutely no doubt that their overall effectiveness was because of strict organization. But there is a reason these movements collapsed, and Id argue that was lack of this special grass-roots revolutionary discipline.

 

Then again, Id be more than happy to admit I am wrong. I remember hearing about Occupy members meeting to set up a more distinct "constitution" of organization or whatnot....that is a huge step in the right direction AFAIC.

 

*(which is certainly its strength but also its flaw- when they achieve the revolution who is to say they will relinquish this power or dissolve this centralized institutionalized hierarchy etc?)