In the actual governement, three of them are the most famous, and are at once women and of African origins - Even if we can disagree with their actions or political thinking, or accusing Sarkozy of shoosing them just for being a symbol or a message for the populations of Africa roots in France.
Mouais. I don't think the "symbols" addressed to whom it may concern are really working...
Rachida is just a fear-mongering, incompetent right-wing UFO about to collapse. Free Dior outfits won't save her from placardisation into the VIIth arrondissement.
I won't be too harsh on Fadela because she's so pathetic.
And Ramatoulayé's outstanding contribution regarding France's foreign affairs and human-right policy is best explained by Roselyne...
One interesting thing about Obama is that he doesn't really make an issue of him being black. I've heard some people accuse him to distance himself from the 'African-American' community somewhat, believing that this is a deliberate attempt to appeal to the majority of Americans. But ultimately, he grew up mainly outwith the continental United States and then went to Harvard, so it seems quite possible that he doesn't really identify with the majority of black Americans anyway.
Out of the Democratic candidates, I support either Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel. Incidentally, Mike Gravel is actually a Unitarian (like me), though I wouldn't want to seem biased in favour of him because of his religious affiliation. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that the Democrats will choose either of those as their official candidate.
Ultimately, I will probably support whomever the Green Party choose as their candidate. I don't know much the various Green candidates at all, but for some reason I rather like Cynthia McKinney:
I'm slightly suspicious though because she was a Democrat until a few months ago, which makes me wonder the extent to which she really advocates Green politics as I understand it. Actually, former Green candidate Elaine Brown withdrew her candidacy and resigned her membership of the Green Party a few weeks ago on the grounds that the leadership of the party had been 'seized by neo-liberal men' who have transformed it into 'a repository for erstwhile, disgruntled Democrats'.
That's funny. My mother and her boyfriend, who probably can't get any "greener" in real life, are very familiar with Cynthia McKinney, and they can't stand her. They of course, live in Georgia, and if I recall correctly, she's been in their living room. But at this point, they seem to consider her a big bowl of crazy. It was just something they mentioned during Christmas. Since I have no interest in Georgia politics, I refrained from inquiring further, so I;m afriad I can't elaborate.
Don't be too concerned about her having been a Democrat until recently. In the US, the Green party is a fringe party with little hope of winning many elections even at the local level (except in California), much less at the national level. So most people who lean toward that end of the political spectrum but want to be practical -- i.e., not throw their votes away on a lost cause -- usually ARE Democrats. There is no real reason why people can't switch back and forth from Democrat to Green; the two are ideologically similar. It would be far less probable to find someone who was both a Republican and a Green, since there is much less common ground there.
Obama's just never grabbed me. And truth be told, I grow very tired of people running on the platform of "I'm a Washington outsider, so my very LACK of credentials/experience/knowledge makes me the perfect candidate to clean up the mess that is Washington" -- bullshit. If there was ever a job that required that you know who to schmooze and what buttons to push to get things done, it's the presidency. I would rather see someone who knows the business get the job. After all, we only hire them for 4 years -- 8 if we really like them -- and that's hardly enough time for on-the-job training. You need to hit the ground running. As in any job, it's part impressive credentials and part who you know.
In other news, my governor, Bill Richardson, just dropped out of the race. He never had a chance, as far as I could see -- we pay little attention to him even here. He was once ambassador to the UN, though, as well as one of the few officials North Korea would negotiate with. But he looked like a basset hound, and no one had ever heard of him.... _________________ An apple a day....
That's funny. My mother and her boyfriend, who probably can't get any "greener" in real life, are very familiar with Cynthia McKinney, and they can't stand her. They of course, live in Georgia, and if I recall correctly, she's been in their living room. But at this point, they seem to consider her a big bowl of crazy. It was just something they mentioned during Christmas. Since I have no interest in Georgia politics, I refrained from inquiring further, so I;m afriad I can't elaborate.
Wow. I must admit, when I was watching her broadcast, I did find it irritating the way she kept saying 'come home to the Green Party'.
Uriel wrote:
Don't be too concerned about her having been a Democrat until recently. In the US, the Green party is a fringe party with little hope of winning many elections even at the local level (except in California), much less at the national level. So most people who lean toward that end of the political spectrum but want to be practical -- i.e., not throw their votes away on a lost cause -- usually ARE Democrats. There is no real reason why people can't switch back and forth from Democrat to Green; the two are ideologically similar. It would be far less probable to find someone who was both a Republican and a Green, since there is much less common ground there.
I see what you mean. That sort of thing happens here as well — I know that there are Labour politicians who are considerably more left-wing than the neo-liberal and neo-conservative policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, for instance. And if I wanted to be more 'practical' then I could've joined the SNP — it's such a broad bunch of people that I would've fitted in somewhere. But then the counter to that is that there'd be a lot more internal competition within the party, and that the SNP probably wouldn't choose someone as left-wing as me to be a candidate for anything anyway.
But I'm surprised though that you say that the Democrats and the Greens are ideologically similar. I tend to think of the Democrats as basically just another neo-liberal 'business as usual' party devoted to serving the interests of multinational corporations, and which on absolute terms is pretty similar to the Conservative Party here. (Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate in the London mayoral election, who is considered pretty right-wing even within the Conservative Party, has recently announced his support for Hillary Clinton). I'd certainly view the Democrats as more similar to the Republicans than to the Greens overall.
But maybe I'm missing the point here. Am I right in thinking that both the Democratic and Republican parties are effectively very broad coalitions, and that politicians voting against their party's official policy is actually very common in the US? I think politicians here tend to be far less independent — they're generally expected to vote according to their party's policy, and dissent is frowned upon and called 'rebelling'.
Last edited by Benjamin [inactive] on Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
I for one tend to just view American politics as hopeless, and view all the parties and candidates as 1) for the status quo, 2) for even stronger corporate interests than in the status quo, or 3) loony and not capable of that necessary to bring about a new social order. I was for a while honestly hoping that Bush would just seize absolute power and make himself dictator so we could be rid of the current political system (which has clearly failed to achieve its purported goals) and so that the government and corporations could be fought more directly rather than having one be constrained to "legitimate" means that are designed so that one will fail if one does not effectively represent the existing elites by the very notion of the system's legitimacy. At least dictatorships are obviously oppressive as opposed to being cloaked in a notion of "freedom" and "rights" as the current American state has, while being little freer in reality for the average person...
In other news, my governor, Bill Richardson, just dropped out of the race. He never had a chance, as far as I could see -- we pay little attention to him even here. He was once ambassador to the UN, though, as well as one of the few officials North Korea would negotiate with. But he looked like a basset hound, and no one had ever heard of him....
Do you think Richardson might get tapped for running mate? So far it looks like either Clinton or Obama will get the Democrat nomination, and they're only Junior Senators, for crying out loud. Neither of them have any executive experience! At least Gov. Richardson would lend them some credibilty in that area...
Hello everyone, by the way Long time, no see!
Travis wrote:
I was for a while honestly hoping that Bush would just seize absolute power and make himself dictator so we could be rid of the current political system (which
Unless Rosie O'Donnell has her way and the Second Amendment is repealed, this is unlikely (to put it mildly) to happen. _________________ "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx
I was for a while honestly hoping that Bush would just seize absolute power and make himself dictator so we could be rid of the current political system (which
Unless Rosie O'Donnell has her way and the Second Amendment is repealed, this is unlikely (to put it mildly) to happen.
Had Bush actually attempted such, the only thing that could have stopped it would be a military rebellion against his government, as they would be the only people able to successfully openly oppose the national civilian government by force of arms. Of course, knowing the US military, that would not have happened.
I think you're confusing the US with Venezuela, Travis. I've lived (not visited, but lived) in countries where there is real oppression going on, where newspaper reporters have to hire bodyguards for themselves and their families, and where government corruption is so bad that people are kidnapped in broad daylight to be held for ransom while police physically turn to look the other way (if they're not outright helping the kidnappers for kickbacks). Half of my husband's family moved to Hell -- I mean, Miami -- when Chavez came to power. Hell, my siblings and I are named after my mother's cousin, who "disappeared" one night with his wife. They were student protesters against President Ferdinand Marcos.
The United States is a loooooong way from that level of corruption you fantasize about. That would require a profound lack of formal education which you could only really find in the truly impoverished, and a great deal of apathy from its citizenry. These are conditions that you just don't find here. The vast majority of Americans are middle class with at least a high school diploma... and if there's one thing Americans aren't apathetic about, it's their politics and where their tax dollars are going. _________________ "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx
I think you're confusing the US with Venezuela, Travis. I've lived (not visited, but lived) in countries where there is real oppression going on, where newspaper reporters have to hire bodyguards for themselves and their families, and where government corruption is so bad that people are kidnapped in broad daylight to be held for ransom while police physically turn to look the other way (if they're not outright helping the kidnappers for kickbacks). Half of my husband's family moved to Hell -- I mean, Miami -- when Chavez came to power. Hell, my siblings and I are named after my mother's cousin, who "disappeared" one night with his wife. They were student protesters against President Ferdinand Marcos.
The United States is a loooooong way from that level of corruption you fantasize about. That would require a profound lack of formal education which you could only really find in the truly impoverished, and a great deal of apathy from its citizenry. These are conditions that you just don't find here. The vast majority of Americans are middle class with at least a high school diploma... and if there's one thing Americans aren't apathetic about, it's their politics and where their tax dollars are going.
What I am referring to does not necessarily have to be so, well, dramatic, and honestly I think that the American public is sufficiently apathetic that they would do little to nothing about such if it happened (even if they complained about such verbally). Such need not require disappearing the opposition, putting soldiers in the streets, and closing newspapers and like.
At the peak of Bush's power such could very well just have happened with a whimper, with Congress being turned into a rubber stamp and being eventually sidelined and through executive orders being used essentially to rule by decree - which had largely already occurred at that point. Elections could even be openly continued with executive orders being used as the primary means of wielding actual power at the national level. At the same time, legislation could be pushed through so as to authorize arbitrary arrest and detainment at the whim of the government - which has already effectively happened for non-citizens. Even if the Supreme Court ruled against such, it would wield practically no actual power to enforce its decisions. At that point, the government would already be effectively autocratic in nature, even though the trappings of a federal republican state would still exist. All that really needs to happen at that point is for some national emergency to eventually come along, at which elections could be "temporarily" suspended pending the conclusion of said emergency - at which they would never actually be resumed. Such would not need to be even as dramatic as the typical bloodless military coup d'etat, and those not paying close attention to politics would likely not even notice that it happened until the next presidential election came along and the voting stations were closed.
But I'm surprised though that you say that the Democrats and the Greens are ideologically similar. I tend to think of the Democrats as basically just another neo-liberal 'business as usual' party devoted to serving the interests of multinational corporations, and which on absolute terms is pretty similar to the Conservative Party here. (Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate in the London mayoral election, who is considered pretty right-wing even within the Conservative Party, has recently announced his support for Hillary Clinton). I'd certainly view the Democrats as more similar to the Republicans than to the Greens overall.
But maybe I'm missing the point here. Am I right in thinking that both the Democratic and Republican parties are effectively very broad coalitions, and that politicians voting against their party's official policy is actually very common in the US? I think politicians here tend to be far less independent — they're generally expected to vote according to their party's policy, and dissent is frowned upon and called 'rebelling'.
Um, well, no, I think Republicans and Democrats have polarized themselves around two different attitudes. Perhaps that is just because I am an American, and am used to thinking of them as two ideological poles. An outsider might not have the same sense of them.
The simplified version is that Republicans tend to be right-wing, pro-business, and against heavy government involvement (finacially or legislatively) in everyday affairs, social programs, etc. They favor fiscal prudence, individualism, and the market.
Democrats tend to be left-wing, and more interested in collectivism and social programs, regulatory agencies, and leveling mechanisms (in the sociological sense). They tend to be far more sympathetic to the causes of environmentalism and government regulation of industry and the idea of looking at collective outcomes versus individual success, and that's where they overlap with the Greens.
Now, with that said, they ARE indeed very broad coalitions, and two Democrats or two Republicans from different ends of their respective parties' spectrums might well find that they had serious differences of opinion on many subjects. My mother and I are both Democrats, and yet we differ marked on such "hot-button" issues as gun control and the death penalty. Neither politicians nor voters expect every member to toe some imaginary party line on every issue; they expect them to still vote their own conscience and opinions.
Nor does being a member of one party mean you can't find things that you agree with in the other. I do admire the Republican attitude toward individualism and fiscal responsibility. I also admire the Democratic attitude toward collective social responsibility, which means that sometimes I have to find a balance between these things that works for me. On the other hand, just because I have more affinity for the Democrats doesn't mean I agree with everything in the party platform -- I'm still just me, with my own ideas.
Probably where you see major similarities between the two parties is in the fact that they are both still strongly underpinned by basic American cultural attitudes. Americans tend to be strongly competitive and business-oriented regardless of party affiliation. Americans as a bunch really do prize the individual, reward success, are suspicious of failure, and view the government as a necessary evil to be kept on a short leash. Even Democrats don't generally aspire to the kind of cradle-to-the-grave care that Europeans often expect from their governments -- that would be creepy. These are the basic social and cultural assumptions that underlie most Americans' upbringing -- how individuals accept or reject all of those underpinnings is up to them, but they are familiar to all of us -- and because the majority of Americans belong to one of those two parties, there will of course be broad similarities on many fronts that are divided mostly by degree, rather than radical differences. So in that way, I can see how you're wondering well, what's the difference, then? But from within, there is one. _________________ An apple a day....
Am I right in thinking that both the Democratic and Republican parties are effectively very broad coalitions, and that politicians voting against their party's official policy is actually very common in the US? I think politicians here tend to be far less independent — they're generally expected to vote according to their party's policy, and dissent is frowned upon and called 'rebelling'.
Exactly. There's much less party discipline in American legislatures than in the Westminster system. Over here it's no big deal if a congressman or senator votes against their party line, as long as it doesn't piss off their constituents too much.
I think our legislative system is much more individualistic than yours: over here, for example, campaigning and fundraising is done mostly by the individual candidates, rather than by the parties. For congressional elections, you won't see ads saying "Vote Democrat for Congress", but rather ads for your local candidate saying, "Vote John Doe, Democrat for Congress". The parties are less cohesive ideologically, more like broad coalitions, and the leadership has much less control over its members. You'll hear all the time about 30 Republicans siding with the Democrats on this bill, 20 Democrats siding with the Republicans on that bill, and so forth. We don't really have concepts of "rebelling" or "votes of (no) confidence".
As for the ideological positions of the parties, I think it's that the Democrats are basically everything to the left of the (American) centerline, and the Republicans are everything to the right, with some overlap. Even though though the two parties may be quite similar on the level of the big mainstream party leadership, it's perfectly natural for real leftists and social democrats (like Kucinich) to gravitate toward the Democratic Party. They might feel even more at home in the Green Party, but the combination of gerrymandering and first-past-the-post elections means that the Greens are not only puny, inviable and irrelevant as a political force - they can be truly detrimental to the center-left movement by spoiling the election for the Democrats and throwing it to the Republicans. Any disgruntled Gore supporter from 2000 would tell you that Ralph Nader stole Democratic votes and threw the election to Bush. (Without the spoiler effect, Gore would almost certainly have won New Hampshire and Florida, and thus the election.) So by joining the Green Party, you consign yourself to the perceived political fringe and abandon any hopes of ever being elected. That's the reason why Kucinich is a Democrat.
Last edited by Lazar on Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:19 am; edited 14 times in total
Um, well, no, I think Republicans and Democrats have polarized themselves around two different attitudes. Perhaps that is just because I am an American, and am used to thinking of them as two ideological poles. An outsider might not have the same sense of them.
That's probably true. I think it's also the case that a party broadly equivalent to the Republicans (on absolute terms) doesn't really exist here, unless you count very minor parties with even less influence than the Greens. As such, politicians advocating the sorts of policies that Republicans tend to advocate would gravitate towards the more right-wing end of the Conservative Party, at least partly because they wouldn't really have anywhere else to go. It's obviously not appropriate for me to try to project the US presidential election onto a British political setting, but in a way I suppose it's kind of inevitable that I will — and from my perspective, both Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani (for example) could easily be Conservatives here.
Uriel wrote:
So in that way, I can see how you're wondering well, what's the difference, then? But from within, there is one.
I see what you mean — interesting response, by the way. Though to be honest, when I look at the policies of Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats these days, I ask myself the same question. Even the SNP ultimately don't really differ much from the other three main parties overall in my view, except that they support Scottish independence.
Lazar wrote:
Exactly. There's much less party discipline in American legislatures than in the Westminster system. Over here it's no big deal if a congressman or senator votes against their party line, as long as it doesn't piss off their constituents too much.
Thought so. I was actually thinking more about Scotland, where MSPs tend to have even less independence than MPs at Westminster, but I agree that what you say probably still stands. In the Scottish Green Party, the Policy Document has been compiled by members after voting on every last line at party conferences over the years, and contains detailed policy on more or less everything where policy could exist. This document is effectively binding on our MSPs — for a Green MSP to vote against the official Green policy in the Parliament without a very good reason (e.g. that circumstances had suddenly changed significantly) would be pretty much unthinkable. Having said that, the Greens here are perhaps a bit more 'extreme' in this regard than the other parties.
Lazar wrote:
We don't really have concepts of "rebelling" or "votes of (no) confidence".
Likewise, we don't really have concepts of 'draft candidates', though such has been considered by some parties in the run-up to the London Mayoral Election (the closest thing to a presidential election that exists in the UK).
Lazar wrote:
They might feel even more at home in the Green Party, but the combination of gerrymandering and first-past-the-post elections means that the Greens are not only puny, inviable and irrelevant as a political force - they can be truly detrimental to the center-left movement by spoiling the election for the Democrats and throwing it to the Republicans. Any disgruntled Gore supporter from 2000 would tell you that Ralph Nader stole Democratic votes and threw the election to Bush.
Incidentally, a month or so ago, one of my housemates accused 'me' (i.e. Greens) of being responsible for Bush's election in 2000. My view, however, is that a Green vote is a Green vote — it is not a 'stolen' vote pre-allocated to another party which views itself as worthy of that vote for whatever reason. If I had been American and eligible to vote in 2000, then I probably would have voted for Ralph Nader, because I could not have supported Al Gore's policies.
My view, however, is that a Green vote is a Green vote — it is not a 'stolen' vote pre-allocated to another party which views itself as worthy of that vote for whatever reason. If I had been American and eligible to vote in 2000, then I probably would have voted for Ralph Nader, because I could not have supported Al Gore's policies.
I understand what you're saying, but wouldn't you have at least preferred Gore over Bush? I think the solution is to use preferential voting (a.k.a. instant-runoff voting), like they do for Australian legislative elections. This would eliminate the spoiler effect, and it would enable people to vote idealistically and pragmatically at the same time.
I understand what you're saying, but wouldn't you have at least preferred Gore over Bush?
Yes, although I question how much difference it would have really made. I do by and large view Gore as a positive influence based on what he does now, but ultimately I have no way of knowing what he would've done if he'd actually been president. And I don't really believe in tactical voting anyway — if I don't vote for my own party, how can I expect anyone else to vote for it?
The Westminster election here still uses a first-past-the-post system, and I fully intend to vote Green at the next election. That said, I live in Menzies Campbell's constituency, which is an ultra-safe Liberal Democrat seat — he's going to get in anyway regardless of how I vote. I must admit that I might consider voting SNP if I lived in a constituency where they had a chance of winning. However, I realise that this sort of thing is not directly comparable to voting in a US presidential election, even if there are certain similarities.
Lazar wrote:
I think the solution is to use preferential voting (a.k.a. instant-runoff voting), like they do for Australian legislative elections. This would eliminate the spoiler effect, and it would enable people to vote idealistically and pragmatically at the same time.
It sounds like a good idea. We use single transferable vote for local councillors in Scotland, which is based on a similar principle. Do you think that such a system is likely to be introduced in the US any time in the foreseeable future though?
I for one tend to just view American politics as hopeless, and view all the parties and candidates as 1) for the status quo, 2) for even stronger corporate interests than in the status quo, or 3) loony and not capable of that necessary to bring about a new social order.
Agree. Hopeless is the right word.
Travis wrote:
I was for a while honestly hoping that Bush would just seize absolute power and make himself dictator so we could be rid of the current political system [...].
Arf ! Why would he bother to organise a putsch when all you need is either steal the elections (2000) or proclaim red/orange/whatever alert on TV every two minutes a couple months before the elections (2004) ?
Travis wrote:
At the peak of Bush's power such could very well just have happened with a whimper, with Congress being turned into a rubber stamp and being eventually sidelined and through executive orders being used essentially to rule by decree - which had largely already occurred at that point. Elections could even be openly continued with executive orders being used as the primary means of wielding actual power at the national level. At the same time, legislation could be pushed through so as to authorize arbitrary arrest and detainment at the whim of the government - which has already effectively happened for non-citizens.
True. Not to mention illegal abduction, unlawful detention & barbaric torture inflicted on hundreds of *innocent* citizens from so many UN Member-States.
Here's a good pick your candidate quiz. Most of other ones I've seen don't have weighted questions. To me, protecting states' rights and the Constitution are more important than stem cell research, for example... but that's just me.
If they had asked something about government growth or the tax code, I'm sure my Ron Paul score (3) would have been higher. As it is, my results are what I expected:
28 McCain
14 Thompson
14 Giuliani
-11 Romney
-11 Edwards
-12 Huckabee
I'm telling you right now, if the presidential race turns out to be between Edwards and Huckabee or Romney, I'm packing my bags for Australia. I loathe all of them equally. _________________ "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx
What I didn't realise until seeing that was that Obama is opposed to the death penalty, whilst Clinton and Edwards aren't. I think that might be enough for me to notionally favour Obama over Clinton or Edwards.
Inthis one,I landed almost in the center of the upper right quadrant. None of the candidates represent me particularly well. Woe is me... Why aren't there any candidates who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal?? WTF?? Couldn't some Reagan Democrats (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) and small-L libertarian Republicans break off from the nutjobs in their respective parties and form a party on their own?
Goddammit, this is why I really hate presidential election years. To me they're just 12+ months of frustration...culminating in an overwhelming feeling of cold dread.
_________________ "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." ---- Groucho Marx
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But unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that the Democrats will choose either of those as their official candidate.
Long time, no see!
Though to be honest, when I look at the policies of Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats these days, I ask myself the same question. Even the SNP ultimately don't really differ much from the other three main parties overall in my view, except that they support Scottish independence.
Why would he bother to organise a putsch when all you need is either steal the elections 
Why aren't there any candidates who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal?? WTF?? 
Couldn't some Reagan Democrats (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) and small-L libertarian Republicans break off from the nutjobs in their respective parties and form a party on their own?