Tag: John McCain

Yeehaw and an hearty thank you.

I shall most definitely pass the link on to my primary lists!

https://www.docudharma.com/show…

Surveys such as this always ASSume one is coming from a lamestream type exsistence.  This is why I have a problem with the questions.  Confusion over the real meaning vs the Orwellian doublespeak meaning arises.  In this case there were at least a few spaces in which I could inject my own personal brand of vitriolic disgust.

On behalf of a research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, I am posting this announcement. They are looking for volunteers to take an online survey about political attitudes and voting behavior.    

Here is the link to the survey:  

NYU Psych Survey

On that page you will find more information about the study.  

If you agree to be in this study, you will be asked to do the following:

1) Complete a questionnaire about your background (age, gender, education, etc.)

2) Report your opinions on various political and social issues and rate how important those issues are to you

3) Evaluate the Presidential candidates (Obama and McCain) on a number of traits and positions

We are interested in learning about your opinions throughout the course of the election, so we also ask you to participate in three bimonthly follow-up surveys that will be shorter but similar in content to the one you are about to complete. You are not required to do the follow-up surveys if you complete this survey, but we encourage you to do so.

Participation in the first session of this study will involve 15-20 minutes of your time. If you agree to participate in the follow-up surveys, each will take an additional 15 minutes. The total time for participation in all four biweekly survey sessions will not exceed an hour.

Also, if you participate in the followup surveys you can win $100.  

If you choose to provide your contact information (your email address), you will entered into a random drawing for 2 prizes of $100 for participating in the survey; if you withdraw before the end of the study, you will not be entered into the drawing. You will be entered into new drawing for $100 each time you complete a follow-up survey (up to four times total).

If you have questions about the survey or your participation they include contact info on that page as well.  

By request I am turning off the comments for this essay. They don’t want the sample to be biased by people talking about the survey here.    

Ten little Indians

One little, two little, three little Indians

Four little, five little, six little Indians

Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians

Ten little Indian boys.

Ten little, nine little, eight little Indians

Seven little, six little, five little Indians

Four little, three little, two little Indians

One little Indian boy.

Also available in teal.

Every time I state my intention to vote, or that I have voted, for a write-in candidate for president I am blasted with vitriol about how I’ve wasted my vote, or that I’ve helped the Republicans win.  To that I say, “bullshit.”  Why do I say this?  I say it because it’s true.

We are told that our options are limited to a choice between “bad” and “worse.”  “Good” is denounced as “perfect,” the “enemy” of the “good,” but this overlooks the fact that no one expects or asks for “perfect.”  We want good politicians who will represent our interests in public office – that’s it.  We don’t expect miracles, or even success 100% of the time, but we do expect and demand that those we elect to power try their best.

It is a sick joke to be told that our votes for third party, independent, or write-in candidates are a waste, and it’s nothing short of fear-mongering to threaten a Republican victory if we don’t throw our principles out the window.  We’re lectured about how there is “too much at stake” in the current election cycle to vote our principles now, that we can vote our principles next time.  The best we can do, or so we’re told, is to vote for Democrats and hope they’re not as bad as the Republicans.

Again, this overlooks certain facts, chief among them being that there’s always going to be “too much at stake.”  That mythical “next” election cycle during which we shall be free to vote our beliefs and principles isn’t going to come as long as we continue to throw our votes away on politicians who represent the establishment and maintain the current regime.  What good does it do us on the left to compromise our principles if the result is always the same: bad politicians who support the status quo?

The strategy of electing “more and better” Democrats doesn’t work because we keep voting for the same corrupt politicians who say one thing but do another, namely, alienating progressives and disenfranchising voters.  As the last two years have shown us, we cannot hope to reform the Democratic Party from within because it has been thoroughly compromised by the lure of money and power.  The number of actual progressive Democrats shrinks every cycle, as the base wakes up to this fact and leaves the party.  It doesn’t help that the duopoly has the assistance of the corporate-owned media, which actively suppresses dissenting voices during campaign coverage.  This is illustrated by the marginalization and elimination of Democrats Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, and John Edwards in last year’s debates.

This inevitably leads to weak corporate candidates such as Al Gore, John Kerry, and now Barack Obama for president.  Each of these politicians ran right-leaning campaigns against their hard right Republican counterparts, thus ensuring that voters would see little or no fundamental difference between them.  This, combined with weak campaigns that allowed the opposition to define the candidates, allowed the GOPhers to get just enough of the vote to steal the elections.  That the votes were so close in the first place speaks volumes about how low the Democrats have sunk in terms of putting up viable candidates; Gore and Kerry should have soundly defeated the shrub, by double digits, in their respective campaigns.  Instead, they ran so far to the political right that they turned off their party’s base.

Finally, there is the imperious attitude among partisan Democrats that none of this matters – it is up to the voters to shut up and go along, rather than the politicians listening to their employers and running effective, progressive campaigns.  That this turns off the base and drives it to look elsewhere for representation should have been a harsh wakeup call to Democrats to re-evaluate their core beliefs, failed strategies and tactics, and unearned sense of entitlement to non-Republican votes, but this hasn’t happened.

So we end up back where we began, on the losing end of elections that should have been in the bag.  If progressives are to break the cycle and have a chance of competing with the corporate duopoly, we must recognize that failed strategies must be abandoned.

Amazing…msnbc vid is here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…

Williams: Who is the elite?

Palin: I guess just people who think that they’re better than everyone else…anyone who thinks that they are better than anyone else, I guess that’s my definition of elitism.

Oh, and John McCain goes on to clarify that it’s also anyone living in Washingotn DC or New York City…Rudy, I think he means you.

Criminal masterminds come from the strangest places. Look at Harvey “Two Face” Dent. Or Lex Luthor. Or Cat Woman.

Well, you have a new name to add to that list: grannyhelen.

Sure, I may look mild-mannered. I’m a 40 year-old, stay-at-home mom of two young kids whose alias is a tribute to my own great-grandmother. I write about nonviolence and politics in between changing diapers and baking cookies. You’d see me on my walk with my two-year-old and never think to yourself: this is the woman who is rending the fabric of our Democracy.

But you’d be wrong.

It is amazing. John McCain mocking Barack Obama for saying he wants to spread the wealth around.

cross-posted at The Wild Wild Left and at daily kos

I know there are some who don’t like Chomsky.  I don’t agree with all he says, but he’s an anti-imperialist and is good on many labor/class issues.

Here, he endorses Obama, sort of.  🙂

Chomsky says while it’s true that the two parties are essentially like factions of one party – the party of business – the differences do matter to ordinary people. If you are living in a swing state, there is nothing wrong with picking the lesser of two evils.

http://therealnews.com/t/index…

I thought some folks here would both understand and appreciate this.