tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post127147734447623221..comments2024-03-27T15:44:43.564-08:00Comments on What Do I Know?: If You Vote For Obama Are You Voting For A War Criminal?Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-21344627271519605962012-08-25T11:55:21.687-08:002012-08-25T11:55:21.687-08:00Ropi, I think you also don't like ambiguity, w...Ropi, I think you also don't like ambiguity, which makes life difficult, not just elections. It's easier to adjust yourself a bit to fit more comfortably in the world than to change the world to fit you. :)Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-35153812185513407392012-08-25T02:13:10.328-08:002012-08-25T02:13:10.328-08:00Phil, not everyone is focused on you. I think ...Phil, not everyone is focused on you. I think 'professor and actor' referred to actor John Cusack and professor Jonathon Turley.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-20052007517609149052012-08-24T21:55:28.137-08:002012-08-24T21:55:28.137-08:00"We need a progressive majority that will get..."We need a progressive majority that will get us out of the war business, <b>not a professor</b> and an actor who whine about what is and whose big suggestion is to dump Obama."<br /><br />--- Assuming by "professor" you might mean me, I am not supporting Romney. However, I cannot support a president who should be in a docket in the Hague for killing thousands of innocent people for the sake of expedience.<br /><br />As an Alaskan, my vote for Dr. Jill Stein will not change the national outcome of this election one bit.<br /><br />BTW, in 44 years of voting, I have never voted for the incumbent president.Philip Mungerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14601488767955084836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-13428058266947092722012-08-23T22:48:43.581-08:002012-08-23T22:48:43.581-08:00Well for me the Libertarian party seems the best o...Well for me the Libertarian party seems the best on the list. I hate elections because so far I haven't found a party to which I could vote with full hearth. Unfortunately I am a perfectionist so I am rarely satisfied.Ropihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12359601042527545932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-21869581474409331662012-08-23T12:12:25.028-08:002012-08-23T12:12:25.028-08:00I appreciate all your thoughtful comments. I thou...I appreciate all your thoughtful comments. I thought it was an important issue that needs to be addressed and I'm particularly pleased that you've kept your comments focused on the issues and raised critical issues. <br /><br />I do think more US citizens need to work for ways to create an alternative that gives us better choices and gives the people of the US more power to affect how our Presidents act in our name.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498066938213558757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-14651377101195661712012-08-23T04:33:00.690-08:002012-08-23T04:33:00.690-08:00Obama is not torturing. While the GOP refusd to cl...Obama is not torturing. While the GOP refusd to close Gitmo, Obama did stop torture. And as far as the rest, Bush opened these doors to executive privilege, and left them WIDE open for the people to follow. I'm sure there are people at the D0J who still think the POTUS should have unlimited power. For a man to step in and reverse all the evil of Bush in one fell swoop is a pipe dream. The country has multitudes of complex problems, not the least of which was the still-imminent threat from bin Laden, a fiscal cliff on several fronts, and the two wars he did not vote for but now was required to lead. While not pefect, I think Obama has done pretty damn well, and the alterbative is not to 'walk away,' but to get him a COngress that is not GOP, which actually likes his drones and wants to stay in Afghanistan AND bomb Iran to boot. We need a progressive majority that will get us out of the war business, not a professor and an actor who whine about what is and whose big suggestion is to dump Obama. For what exactly? The GOP scares the crap out of me, and you KNOW they won't prosecute anybody, and they will expand the Patriot Act until we are in a facist state. I like Turley when he appeared on Olbermann, but I think this is an academic discussion with little basis in the realities of the situation Obama is in.<br /> Seriously, has Mitt even MENTIONED the wars, other than to pledge ever more dollars for the war department?Sally in MInoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-13505101802277904272012-08-23T03:21:55.711-08:002012-08-23T03:21:55.711-08:00The US has a president whose undergraduate degree ...The US has a president whose undergraduate degree was international relations. One thing you learn in this field is that international law is nuanced (and dictated) by that nation or nations currently in superior position. International law is built on treaty of the hopeful and enforcement of the powerful.<br /><br />I'm not out to set a paper on this thesis; I'm saying this to submit that the current American president operates within the perquisites of power and unlike Phil's assertion that we have never seen the likes of his abuses before, I would quickly remind all of us that we have -- many, too many times, throughout our human history.<br /><br />International dominance is found in what used to be called empire, where men (and occasionally women) exercised imperial prerogative. Empire for our purpose today is found in disputed power proven in combat and commerce to the satisfaction of its imitators. Killing, consequently, is a tool of statecraft, proving station in the community of nations.<br /><br />Every single president has been faced with the dilemma of when to use what we call 'hard' power as means to settle disputes. It's intoxicating stuff to the human animal and our international relations student of years ago is quite touched with its exercise, it appears.<br /><br />But does this make him a war criminal? Well, maybe; yet he is likely no more criminal in using violence than international law failing to enjoin violence. It is a grim state of affairs.<br /><br />But I believe, ultimately, it is America civilisation that is guilty of killing more so than its presidents. The people have built its politics, its business ethic, its armed forces and its religio-economic philosophy of power. Obama is but the last in a line of our country's school for presidents.<br /><br />Sorry. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Jacob Dugan-Brausehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06287631724339961459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-12923624910645701502012-08-23T01:16:13.226-08:002012-08-23T01:16:13.226-08:00So basically the question is--if you vote for Pres...So basically the question is--if you vote for President Obama are you voting for a President who has done exactly what his predecessors have done---but probably with less loss of life? Are you voting for a man with a cold adapted eye who was never a sympathetic socialist? Or did we vote for President Obama because we thought he would fart rainbows and magical dust and tuck us all in?<br /><br />I am voting for President Obama and the reason is not just that the alternative would be Romney. My answer is I haven't approved of many of the things people I have voted for have done. But I'm not naive about how ugly the world is and some of our policies have always been. But I have hailed an extraordinary amount of policies THIS President has implemented. I shall be early voting for Barack Hussein Obama. End of comment.<br />annettenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-22709718710647584232012-08-22T23:21:02.930-08:002012-08-22T23:21:02.930-08:00The writings on the wall.
AKjah.The writings on the wall. <br />AKjah.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-79414625258280133442012-08-22T22:42:53.558-08:002012-08-22T22:42:53.558-08:00He is a war criminal. In a rational world, he wou...He <b>is</b> a war criminal. In a rational world, he would be brought up on charges for the killings of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and serve a term for the rest of his life.<br /><br />So was W. <br /><br />So was Cinton - over 500,000 Iraqi kids died during his presidency due to our policies of denying that country the ability to rebuild the water treatment infrastructure destroyed during the first Gulf War. <br /><br />So was GWI - the first Gulf War was an egregious operation set up by us through giving Saddam the false message that if he invaded Kuwait, we would not intervene. <br /><br />So was Reagan - El Salvador being one of the premiere examples. <br /><br />I'm not so sure about Carter. Or Ford. In the cases of Carter and Ford, our policies in Latin America during the six years they together inhabited the White House continued to carry on policies begun under Nixon, or earlier. <br /><br />Nixon was awful, and a first-rate war criminal. <br /><br />LBJ shielded many war crimes committed during his six years. <br /><br />Kennedy tried to destroy the power of the military industrial complex Eisenhower had warned him of. The result of Kennedy's efforts was a CIA-led assassination against him.<br /><br />Obama has inherited a legacy of generations of rampant and criminal abuse of power that has no precedence in human history. And at a time when the planet is on the brink of being overwhelmed by the ecological damage our "civilizations" have wrought.<br /><br />It doesn't matter who you vote for, because within 50 years, the percentage of spent fuel pools being breached every five years at decaying reactors around the planet will end life as we know it.<br /><br />I'm voting for Dr. Jill Stein.Philip Mungerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14601488767955084836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-35781629431382174232012-08-22T20:23:44.741-08:002012-08-22T20:23:44.741-08:00The main reason (besides the fact that the alterna...The main reason (besides the fact that the alternative is too ruinous to contemplate) I'm voting for President Obama to get re-elected is that I'm counting on his oft-said statement that this is the last campaign he's running, his last election. <br /><br />I'm counting on him making every day of his second term count because term limits allow him exponentially greater latitude to do great things than his first term did (knowing he'd need more than a first term to accomplish goals). <br /><br />I'm counting on some of the more repugnant things Obama has done in his first term were done pragmatically, politically and cynically, because he will do the more radical measures we all hope for (like rein in Wall Street, close Guantanamo, get out of Afghanistan, end the drone strikes, end NAFTA, etc.) in a less restrained second term.<br /><br />I'm hoping he's, indeed, President Obama, not the second coming of George W. Bush.KaJohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11043005602676549904noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30897652.post-11257370742530530292012-08-22T20:12:09.797-08:002012-08-22T20:12:09.797-08:00What is not spoken about here is the general premi...What is not spoken about here is the general premise of when one "loses" their rights as an American Citizen. <br /><br />A good commentary on this subject was done by Stonekettle Station Blog. <br /><br /> http://www.stonekettle.com/2011/10/consequences.html<br /><br />"....They renounced their membership in our society and pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. They swore to bring down the United States and her allies and to kill as many of us as they could. Should they have been captured and brought to trial? Sure, in a perfect world. But in the real world it just wasn’t possible, not without risking even more American lives. And I’m going to remind you right here that the people complaining most bitterly about this are the same folks who complained bitterly about risking the lives of US Navy SEALs to capture bin Laden or rescue Rangers. How many more of their lives would al Awlaki have been worth to you?" hedgewytchnoreply@blogger.com