Sorry Wholley, I had to dash out, retail emergency!
The question is still the same, do the majority of the entire population want the elected representative, or is is just the majority of those who can be bothered to vote.
Personally I believe in compulsary voting.
If you don't vote you get the governement you deserve.
I know it's a thorny issue but the last thing I want is see another example of a leader put in place by big business and nepotism. When that leader has a free hand to do as he and the oil companies please, well lord help us.
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Kerry Concedes
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Frank S.
- Guest
It's "the majority who can be bothered to vote".
I don't want to make the issue more complicated than it is, but we have five different voting systems in place, and the more recent one, electronic voting is highly debatable in its accuracy and efficiency.
From groundwork (strategy) to actual campaigning and election night, I'd say the whole thing begins about mid-term through a four year presidency. I don't know if Paul will agree because it's my own perception, but the last year and a half to two years of an administration is dedicated mostly to the next election.
That I think is a BIG problem.
Not to mention the amount of money expended by both sides, elections get more and more expensive, and in times of huge deficits, it's pretty disturbing.
Add to this groups for either side (for instance moveon.org for the Dems and swiftboat veterans for the Republicans) producing highly questionable character attacks on both candidates, and what people begin to think is that they need to vote either for or against one of those guys.
In fact, it has the unintended effect (at least I think it's not intentional) to 'shield' the people around the candidates.
And the thing is that some of those people need to go (if they are in the administration) or be blocked from holding office (if they are running against the incumbent).
In other words, you vote for or against a team, not just the front man.
I don't want to make the issue more complicated than it is, but we have five different voting systems in place, and the more recent one, electronic voting is highly debatable in its accuracy and efficiency.
From groundwork (strategy) to actual campaigning and election night, I'd say the whole thing begins about mid-term through a four year presidency. I don't know if Paul will agree because it's my own perception, but the last year and a half to two years of an administration is dedicated mostly to the next election.
That I think is a BIG problem.
Not to mention the amount of money expended by both sides, elections get more and more expensive, and in times of huge deficits, it's pretty disturbing.
Add to this groups for either side (for instance moveon.org for the Dems and swiftboat veterans for the Republicans) producing highly questionable character attacks on both candidates, and what people begin to think is that they need to vote either for or against one of those guys.
In fact, it has the unintended effect (at least I think it's not intentional) to 'shield' the people around the candidates.
And the thing is that some of those people need to go (if they are in the administration) or be blocked from holding office (if they are running against the incumbent).
In other words, you vote for or against a team, not just the front man.
Roger that, thanks for the overview.
I thought the british system was complex, well not any more I don't.
Well guys let's hope that good sense will prevail, though on previous form that seems less than likely.
So all we can now do is sit back and watch the proceedings from afar, trust that things don't get out of hand and for gawds sake don't anyone out there piss Bush off for the next few years.
I thought the british system was complex, well not any more I don't.
Well guys let's hope that good sense will prevail, though on previous form that seems less than likely.
So all we can now do is sit back and watch the proceedings from afar, trust that things don't get out of hand and for gawds sake don't anyone out there piss Bush off for the next few years.
Archie.
"If there is a better way......find it!" (Thomas Alva Edison)
"If there is a better way......find it!" (Thomas Alva Edison)
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Frank S.
- Guest
I'm gonna stray a bit from the topic here, but you know, since we've had a 'political' forum, I got to think quite a bit about issues raised in certain threads.
It's just an opinion, mind, but as long as the Democratic party hangs to the left, towards liberalism, they will not get back into the White House.
Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and now Kerry all lost and are candidates who ran on a platform which could be termed as liberal.
Now, I don't think there's much wrong with liberalism, if we can separate it from political correctness (not an easy task).
In the candidates mentioned above one name is missing: Clinton, who actually won and won twice.
Again, this is up for argument, but I think Clinton ran a platform which was packaged as more centrist than any of the other Democrats.
What he did after gaining access to the office is another matter. But he managed to be perceived as more moderate, and therefore more able to work with Republicans. Of course that changed, but it changed in no small part due to Republican speaker of the house Newt Gingrich and a specific agenda.
In a profile of Dick Cheney, I read something which I thought interesting at the time, something he shares with Gingrich and others: these are people who long for a social model which they associate with the era in which they grew up, they want to bring back the moral clarity of the 1950s, a time which they also associate with economic prosperity.
Simplifications can't be helped, and I'm bordering on caricature here, unfortunately. But it's also human nature to feel some nostalgia for simpler times. Of course it's only a perception, an idealized version of 'better' times.
Many of us have said something along those lines: "bring back the draft... Bring back the cane... Bring back a time when pillowbiters didn't dare show their face on TV, let alone flaunt their perversions", etc.
And maybe above all else: bring back accountability.
Since I ended up on civvie street some moons ago, I have looked for it and consistently failed to find it.
In the US, most TV shows and theatrical movies always revolved around three professions, as I've pointed out before: cops, lawyers and doctors. All of which require the practitioner to take some kind of oath.
And more recently, actually since 9/11, many military websites/forums have seen significant increases in both memberships and traffic.
Before 9/11, most terrorist attacks were seen to target US military personnel. And in the years since, the American public has turned to its military for both protection and perspective.
For that matter, even the administration appears to rely almost exclusively on the military to fight terrorism.
Our intelligence and police agencies (CIA, FBI, Customs...) couldn't protect us on that day, and it appeared that there was little to no accountability within them, while corporate scandals compounded the malaise...
So the temptation is great in this age of instant and global communications, as well as increasing dependence on corporations for welfare issues, to long for simpler times, aulden times.
But it's really going backwards, isn't it? And the world, while not any bigger, is so much more dangerous in many ways...
It's just an opinion, mind, but as long as the Democratic party hangs to the left, towards liberalism, they will not get back into the White House.
Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and now Kerry all lost and are candidates who ran on a platform which could be termed as liberal.
Now, I don't think there's much wrong with liberalism, if we can separate it from political correctness (not an easy task).
In the candidates mentioned above one name is missing: Clinton, who actually won and won twice.
Again, this is up for argument, but I think Clinton ran a platform which was packaged as more centrist than any of the other Democrats.
What he did after gaining access to the office is another matter. But he managed to be perceived as more moderate, and therefore more able to work with Republicans. Of course that changed, but it changed in no small part due to Republican speaker of the house Newt Gingrich and a specific agenda.
In a profile of Dick Cheney, I read something which I thought interesting at the time, something he shares with Gingrich and others: these are people who long for a social model which they associate with the era in which they grew up, they want to bring back the moral clarity of the 1950s, a time which they also associate with economic prosperity.
Simplifications can't be helped, and I'm bordering on caricature here, unfortunately. But it's also human nature to feel some nostalgia for simpler times. Of course it's only a perception, an idealized version of 'better' times.
Many of us have said something along those lines: "bring back the draft... Bring back the cane... Bring back a time when pillowbiters didn't dare show their face on TV, let alone flaunt their perversions", etc.
And maybe above all else: bring back accountability.
Since I ended up on civvie street some moons ago, I have looked for it and consistently failed to find it.
In the US, most TV shows and theatrical movies always revolved around three professions, as I've pointed out before: cops, lawyers and doctors. All of which require the practitioner to take some kind of oath.
And more recently, actually since 9/11, many military websites/forums have seen significant increases in both memberships and traffic.
Before 9/11, most terrorist attacks were seen to target US military personnel. And in the years since, the American public has turned to its military for both protection and perspective.
For that matter, even the administration appears to rely almost exclusively on the military to fight terrorism.
Our intelligence and police agencies (CIA, FBI, Customs...) couldn't protect us on that day, and it appeared that there was little to no accountability within them, while corporate scandals compounded the malaise...
So the temptation is great in this age of instant and global communications, as well as increasing dependence on corporations for welfare issues, to long for simpler times, aulden times.
But it's really going backwards, isn't it? And the world, while not any bigger, is so much more dangerous in many ways...
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Wholley
- Guest
Some Good,some bad has come out of the re-election of GWB.
Colin Powell resigns,Good.He as head of the State Dept obstructed what we needed to do overseas.
Condy Rice will make a better head of the State Dept.
Carl Rove is the poster boy for the republican party.Bad,An extreme right winger he will try to push the republicans further right.
The new guy at the CIA has been cleaning house.Good! They can go back to being what they should be,secret! and the Clinton apointees are finally gone,resigned just before they saw the silver bullet aimed in their direction.
This also enables the FBI to do it's job again which is and always has been internal security,not spying which Clinton wanted them to do as he despised the CIA.
My problem is how far right will GWB take this country?
Now he has a Mandate will he go further right or stay on the the course I'd like to see.
Wholley
Colin Powell resigns,Good.He as head of the State Dept obstructed what we needed to do overseas.
Condy Rice will make a better head of the State Dept.
Carl Rove is the poster boy for the republican party.Bad,An extreme right winger he will try to push the republicans further right.
The new guy at the CIA has been cleaning house.Good! They can go back to being what they should be,secret! and the Clinton apointees are finally gone,resigned just before they saw the silver bullet aimed in their direction.
This also enables the FBI to do it's job again which is and always has been internal security,not spying which Clinton wanted them to do as he despised the CIA.
My problem is how far right will GWB take this country?
Now he has a Mandate will he go further right or stay on the the course I'd like to see.
Wholley
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Frank S.
- Guest
I'm going to differ with you, although what we see happening is what I 'hoped' would take place if president Bush was reelected (more on that in a bit).
I think, if we want to get an idea as to whether this administration is able to change course, we can use Iraq as a metric.
Before the invasion, Rumsfeld went to the president asking for total control not only over military operations but over reconstruction efforts as well. Now typically, the reconstruction part after a conflict involving the US is handled by the State Department.
When things began going pearshaped, meaning reconstruction budgets were being eaten up by rising security costs, the president shifted this responsibility back to Powell's State Department. No mistake was admitted by either Rumsfeld or the president or the NSC (Condi Rice).
Now we know Powell was the one voice of dissent when the plans to go to war were on the table in closed meetings, and I think maybe we can call him 'obstructionist', as VP Cheney said he was.
So it boils down to this: was the Iraq invasion in our best interest?
If so, possibly, Powell had to go.
However, I also believe a cabinet should be made of various independent thinkers who offer differing opinions. When it comes to war in particular, isn't it necessary to hear from people who can tell you where the traps are because they've 'been there' and do not believe war should be the option just yet?
Because the alternative is what we are getting now with this reshuffle of appointments.
The president is extending his control from the White House to the entire government. And wants people who will make his decisions happen without questions. Without questions.
This is what Porter Goss is doing at CIA: yes he is cutting dead wood, but his main directive is to ensure total, unquestioning loyalty to the president by ridding the agency of leakers and alternative thinkers and actors.
He is in fact cutting to close to the trunk.
This is worrisome at any time, but at a time when the country is at war, it is potentially disastrous.
Cleaning out appointees and their proteges from a previous administration is to be expected somewhat, but this is going much further than that. In effect, what is happening reflects Cheney's frustration with the agency during the months leading to the invasion, when Cheney ended up having the Pentagon setting its own intel cell which relied heavily if not exclusively on Iraqi exiles, Chalabi in particular.
In that contest, CIA actually lost, just as Powell lost the arguments against invading Iraq.
Will Condi Rice make a better head of State? Depends what metric you use. It could be argued that both she and Powell were loyal to the president: Powell never spoke out against the president's decisions publicly.
Rice never spoke against the president's decisions publicly nor privately, that we know of.
The pattern then is this: the president wants "yes men" and women. Because he is certain of his decisions and does not tolerate questions after his mind is made up.
What he does not have in fact, is much time. Things are not in fact improving. Should they continue to deteriorate he may well loose the house in two years. The Democrats are in disarray, but so is the Republican party. McCain and other more centrist Republicans are not only concerned to say the least, about the deficit and trade imbalance, they are afraid to openly oppose presidential policies for fear to be replaced by others more in line with the president. This can't last.
In which direction is he moving the country?
Again I think that trying to define it in terms of right or left may be using the wrong metric.
Look at Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales (the new attorney general replacing Ashcroft): they may not be the neocons first choices for those posts. What distinguishes them is their personal connection to the president himself.
They have no political base in Washington, no real standing. But they do give the president direct control over both State and Justice.
I remember Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, in which she referred to a CIA memo to the president warning of Bin Laden plotting an attack on US soil as a "historical" document, thereby dismissing its urgency. And no one batted an eye.
Now, this is an extract of a letter by Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University (non-denomitional Christian):
"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.
Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.
Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years—a brief time only—to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God.
Christ said, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour” (John 12:26).
The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you—that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn't care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right."
Time to read up on the Rapture. I hoped things would turn out this way because I think we need a big wake up call and see these people for what they really are on about.
I think, if we want to get an idea as to whether this administration is able to change course, we can use Iraq as a metric.
Before the invasion, Rumsfeld went to the president asking for total control not only over military operations but over reconstruction efforts as well. Now typically, the reconstruction part after a conflict involving the US is handled by the State Department.
When things began going pearshaped, meaning reconstruction budgets were being eaten up by rising security costs, the president shifted this responsibility back to Powell's State Department. No mistake was admitted by either Rumsfeld or the president or the NSC (Condi Rice).
Now we know Powell was the one voice of dissent when the plans to go to war were on the table in closed meetings, and I think maybe we can call him 'obstructionist', as VP Cheney said he was.
So it boils down to this: was the Iraq invasion in our best interest?
If so, possibly, Powell had to go.
However, I also believe a cabinet should be made of various independent thinkers who offer differing opinions. When it comes to war in particular, isn't it necessary to hear from people who can tell you where the traps are because they've 'been there' and do not believe war should be the option just yet?
Because the alternative is what we are getting now with this reshuffle of appointments.
The president is extending his control from the White House to the entire government. And wants people who will make his decisions happen without questions. Without questions.
This is what Porter Goss is doing at CIA: yes he is cutting dead wood, but his main directive is to ensure total, unquestioning loyalty to the president by ridding the agency of leakers and alternative thinkers and actors.
He is in fact cutting to close to the trunk.
This is worrisome at any time, but at a time when the country is at war, it is potentially disastrous.
Cleaning out appointees and their proteges from a previous administration is to be expected somewhat, but this is going much further than that. In effect, what is happening reflects Cheney's frustration with the agency during the months leading to the invasion, when Cheney ended up having the Pentagon setting its own intel cell which relied heavily if not exclusively on Iraqi exiles, Chalabi in particular.
In that contest, CIA actually lost, just as Powell lost the arguments against invading Iraq.
Will Condi Rice make a better head of State? Depends what metric you use. It could be argued that both she and Powell were loyal to the president: Powell never spoke out against the president's decisions publicly.
Rice never spoke against the president's decisions publicly nor privately, that we know of.
The pattern then is this: the president wants "yes men" and women. Because he is certain of his decisions and does not tolerate questions after his mind is made up.
What he does not have in fact, is much time. Things are not in fact improving. Should they continue to deteriorate he may well loose the house in two years. The Democrats are in disarray, but so is the Republican party. McCain and other more centrist Republicans are not only concerned to say the least, about the deficit and trade imbalance, they are afraid to openly oppose presidential policies for fear to be replaced by others more in line with the president. This can't last.
In which direction is he moving the country?
Again I think that trying to define it in terms of right or left may be using the wrong metric.
Look at Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales (the new attorney general replacing Ashcroft): they may not be the neocons first choices for those posts. What distinguishes them is their personal connection to the president himself.
They have no political base in Washington, no real standing. But they do give the president direct control over both State and Justice.
I remember Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission, in which she referred to a CIA memo to the president warning of Bin Laden plotting an attack on US soil as a "historical" document, thereby dismissing its urgency. And no one batted an eye.
Now, this is an extract of a letter by Bob Jones III, president of Bob Jones University (non-denomitional Christian):
"In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.
Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.
Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years—a brief time only—to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God.
Christ said, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour” (John 12:26).
The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you—that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn't care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right."
Time to read up on the Rapture. I hoped things would turn out this way because I think we need a big wake up call and see these people for what they really are on about.
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Wholley
- Guest
Now how come I'm not suprised at your answer?
I'm just going to cover the important points you made,as I'm too tired to write a book right now(How do you find the energy for all this typing?)
Powell did not want to go to war at all and his state has been a pain in the butt to the president all along.I think when we show that we may not be unified while at war then we open ourselves up to displayed or at least assumed weaknesses.CIA is a point in case here.Having had their nads removed by Clinton and had their administrative branch replaced by purely political appointees they were evicsrerated...er eviserated..um Farked as an effective foreign intelligence gathering service.
You really can't blame Bush for wanting the infighting to stop.
Chamberlain,with a weak hold on his own cabinet declared"Peace in our time"Didn't work out too well then and a sign of weakness now will have the same result.
My opinion,get this done,the fighting men home and THEN everyone in DC can get back to their school yard stupidity
I'm just going to cover the important points you made,as I'm too tired to write a book right now(How do you find the energy for all this typing?)
Powell did not want to go to war at all and his state has been a pain in the butt to the president all along.I think when we show that we may not be unified while at war then we open ourselves up to displayed or at least assumed weaknesses.CIA is a point in case here.Having had their nads removed by Clinton and had their administrative branch replaced by purely political appointees they were evicsrerated...er eviserated..um Farked as an effective foreign intelligence gathering service.
You really can't blame Bush for wanting the infighting to stop.
Chamberlain,with a weak hold on his own cabinet declared"Peace in our time"Didn't work out too well then and a sign of weakness now will have the same result.
My opinion,get this done,the fighting men home and THEN everyone in DC can get back to their school yard stupidity
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Frank S.
- Guest
I'm getting off of the Powell thing, after all I think you and I are part of the 30% of the population who do not approve of his performance as secstate, I'm certainly no fan of his.
About CIA, I'd differentiate between DI and DO (Directorates of Intelligence and Operations). I don't think there's much doubt there is/was a problem of a political nature at DI (the analysts). As to DO, they have a persistent reputation for having a case of 'cold feet' when it comes to field work. However, I also think this doesn't take into account all the work they've done since 9/11.
Remember Mike Spann, and others from Operations in Afghanistan? They were out there 'taking the fight to the enemy' and Spann was KIA at some detention center.
And whether one agrees with what they do or not, they are extremely active:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 99,00.html
How will the resignations of the head of DO and his number 2 affect it remains to be seen.
The point that CIA's been politicized also is well taken, but what is happening now is no different:
in his internal memo, "the rules of the road," Goss said, "We support the administration and its policies in our work as agency employees."
Same thing, different boss.
Now, as to bringing the troops home, I see no plans whatsoever to do so. Not with permanent bases established within Iraq and the largest embassy anywhere. The goal is to stay: reshuffling military bases East, out of Europe and closer to the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
Best case scenario: Iraqi security forces and military get sufficiently up to snuff so as to take over from US forces who can then fall back to those bases or be redeployed elsewhere, like in Iran:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... _2004nov17
About CIA, I'd differentiate between DI and DO (Directorates of Intelligence and Operations). I don't think there's much doubt there is/was a problem of a political nature at DI (the analysts). As to DO, they have a persistent reputation for having a case of 'cold feet' when it comes to field work. However, I also think this doesn't take into account all the work they've done since 9/11.
Remember Mike Spann, and others from Operations in Afghanistan? They were out there 'taking the fight to the enemy' and Spann was KIA at some detention center.
And whether one agrees with what they do or not, they are extremely active:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 99,00.html
How will the resignations of the head of DO and his number 2 affect it remains to be seen.
The point that CIA's been politicized also is well taken, but what is happening now is no different:
in his internal memo, "the rules of the road," Goss said, "We support the administration and its policies in our work as agency employees."
Same thing, different boss.
Now, as to bringing the troops home, I see no plans whatsoever to do so. Not with permanent bases established within Iraq and the largest embassy anywhere. The goal is to stay: reshuffling military bases East, out of Europe and closer to the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
Best case scenario: Iraqi security forces and military get sufficiently up to snuff so as to take over from US forces who can then fall back to those bases or be redeployed elsewhere, like in Iran:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... _2004nov17
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Wholley
- Guest
Apart from the"economic bit"I agree with Cheney and his peers.Frank S. wrote:
In a profile of Dick Cheney, I read something which I thought interesting at the time, something he shares with Gingrich and others: these are people who long for a social model which they associate with the era in which they grew up, they want to bring back the moral clarity of the 1950s, a time which they also associate with economic prosperity.
Does this mean I'm(Finally)Getting old?
Looking back at a long lost Camelot?
I really hope not.
Night Frank,I really need arrest.(tee hee)
Paul.
PS.I hope this thread is not becoming the Frank and Paul Show.
Seems to be drifting in that direction dunnit.
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Wholley
- Guest
