Science > Abortion > Michael Moore: Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?
| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"Doug Bashford" |
| Date: |
09 Jan 2008 11:40:04 AM |
| Object: |
Michael Moore: Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do? |
In Iowa, Edwards took second place, Hillary third.
If there is a fair corporate Media, then why was 90% of
the talk about Hillary and Obama? Hello?
And why is EVERY time Edwards mentioned, it's;
Oh, he's *just* a populist? ...*just* a populist? Hellooooo
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:
populist[1,noun]
1: a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people
2: a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people
Cambridge International Dictionary of English : populism
***** noun [U] MAINLY DISAPPROVING
political ideas and activities that are intended to represent ordinary
people's needs and wishes:
Their ideas are simple populism - tax cuts and higher wages.
populist adjective
representing or connected with the ideas and opinions of ordinary people
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
** def populist: "MAINLY DISAPPROVING" Hellooooo corporate Media....
....and that includes PBS. Anybody counted all the corporate
commercials on PBS from 5:00 to 7:00 PM during the news? (It's largely
from Big Pollution and the Extraction industry.) Now, post-New Hampshire,
last night on Charlie Rose, 50 minutes into the program, asked ONE
question of only one pundit about Edwards. Total: one minte, less time
than sixth-place tie Ron Paul and Gulliani.
============ ================
On 03 Jan 2008, ...
Who Do We Vote For This Time Around?
A Letter from Michael Moore
Friends,
A new year has begun.
And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions,
we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the
good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now
occupies three countries and a white house.
Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we
have failed.
Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world
left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope
that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of
the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the
Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,
and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and
do it with gusto.
Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a
less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam
dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about
each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we
have now.
Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate,
shares the same positions that I have on the issues. But let's not waste
time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements
like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their
support to Senator Obama as their "second choice."
So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?
Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I
would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one
interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards.
"The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore."
The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me
interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed.
Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.
Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with
me? What was she afraid of?
Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that
11 years ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled,
"My Forbidden Love for Hillary." I was fed up with the treatment
she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should
stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her
as "one hot s***kicking feminist babe." I supported and contributed to
her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who
loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap
than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right.
Her inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years
of white male rule in a country where 51% of its citizens are
female and 64% are either female or people of color.
And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the
disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war
in Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his
"authorization" to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote
she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal
war, and doing so with verve.
She never met a request from the White House for war authorization that
she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for
authorization but later came to realize the folly of their decision,
Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last
March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American
public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say
that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her
culpability in America's worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can
bring herself to say is that she was "misled" by "faulty intelligence."
Let's assume that's true.
Do you want a President who is so easily misled?
I wasn't "misled," and millions of others who took to the streets in
February of 2003 weren't "misled" either.
It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none
of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security
experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of
Iraq. And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of
you reading this letter: Were YOU "misled" -- or did you figure it out
sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that George
W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators
were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from
the get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton?
I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that
one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as
president is because she would also be commander in chief.
The majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be
as likely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!).
So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had
to be as "tough" as a man, she had to be willing to push The Button if
necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted.
If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this
would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced
with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows that in order to
get re-elected she'd better be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever
sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes
it in one piece to her second term?
I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes in
the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even
more (she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the
leading recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions
-- from the health care industry).
I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very good
chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in
the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the
primaries and caucuses, isn't this the time to vote for the person who most
reflects the values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good
conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and
over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.
Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me...
Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air!
There's no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to straighten
things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a guy who
gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know about him?
I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a
speech before the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has
voted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should
get out. He says he's for the little guy, but then he votes for a
corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a
class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy.
In fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place.
He wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health
care plan -- the same companies who have created the mess in the first
place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected,
the Republicans will eat him for breakfast. He won't even have time to
make a good speech about it.
But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that
heart is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of
America vote for him? We'd like to believe they would. We'd like to
believe America has changed, wouldn't we? Obama lets us feel better about
ourselves -- and as we look out the window at the guy snowplowing his
driveway across the street, we want to believe he's changed, too.
But are we dreaming?
And then there's John Edwards.
It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you
do -- and recently I have chosen to try -- you find a man who is
out to take on the wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for
so many. A candidate who says things like this:
"I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and
corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy."
Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at
least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why
Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the stash
of cash the other two have.
He won't take the big checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone
among the top three candidates in agreeing to limit his spending and be
publicly funded.
Edwards has said, point-blank, that he's going after the drug companies
and the oil companies and anyone else who is messing with the American
worker. The corporate media clearly find him to be a threat, probably
because he will go after their monopolistic power, too.
This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That's why it's resonating with
people in Iowa, even though he doesn't get the attention Obama and Hillary
get -- and that lack of coverage may cost him the first place spot tomorrow
night. After all, he is one of those white guys who's been running things
for far too long.
And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite
forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be
forgiven? Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused
to promise in a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq
by the end of his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed
his mind. He went further than Clinton and Obama and said he'd have all
the troops home in less than a year.
Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal
health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other
civilized countries have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like,
but he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health
insurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table.
I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the
first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months I've been
wanting to ask the question,
"Where are you, Al Gore?"
You can only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by
Scandinavians! I don't blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit
again after you already won. But getting us to change out our
incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn't going
to save the world. All it's going to do is make us more agitated and
jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven't really left the office.
On second thought, would you Al Gore?...even be willing to utter the words,
"I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate
power has an ironclad hold on our democracy?" 'Cause the candidate who
understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the
root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of
sanity, justice and peace.
Yours,
Michael Moore (not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a
town named after a sofa)
----------------------------------------------------------------
As usual, MM gets to the heart of the matter and makes a ton of sense.
(Except Hillary who is just Bush-Lite regarding corporatism and fear-
mongering pitchfork-mob following. She ain't about nuthin but
Bush-Liteism, a kinder gentler buttfuck. Vasoline, baby.)
I was fence-sitting till New Year's.
I have decided to vote Edwards. He and Ron Paul (a feelsgood free-
lunch policy disaster) are the only ones who don't pretend that
America-the-Free, America-the-Good is not in great peril from within.
"Fascism should more properly be called
corporatism, since it is the merger
of state and corporate power."
- Mussolini, father of fascism.
Mommy, what's fascism?
All American patriots should know this.
Political quiz:
Take away the swastikas, Hitler, and the concentration camps.
....Now define fascism.
Can't do it? That's no accedent. Wake up America.
.
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| User: "John Black" |
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| Title: Re: Michael Moore: Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do? |
10 Jan 2008 11:08:33 AM |
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In article <dr2dnTkM-t92ZRnanZ2dnUVZ_i2dnZ2d@pghconnect.com>,
playing@always.edu says...
In fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place.
This is one of Moore's criticisms of Obama. Still a clown...
John Black
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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