Miscellaneous > The Lounge
A civilised political discussion
WMD:
Well, if those 14 points about Facism are correct (which I don't doubt), then you could argue that the US has been Facist for quite a long time. Clinton signed the DMCA and MS got away. Enron started their shit in 1999. And that's just the beginning.
PATRIOT Act: That thing is a joke. It's days are numbered even if Bush gets re-elected. Bush says he "wants to make it permanent" - silly him, there's no such thing in US law. And if Bush is re-elected, I can almost guarentee a Dem winning in '08, which would kill it. (I can even see myself voting for that person.)
ABCNNBCBS: Never heard that before...good one. :D Luckily, independent stuff via Internet can't really be stopped. I have some indymedia.org streams in my Winamp list (inclucing them at the RNC). Even if suppression of this is seeked by the government, that's another thing they won't be able to pull off.
Ashcroft: He can jabber about God all he wants, doesn't bother me. Why? Because like any extremist, he won't get away with much of what he appears to want. He's raided houses for file-sharers, and that's unrelated to religion: it's just the same corporate-controlled shit that's been out there for quite a while. RIAA, anyone? Oh, he wrote the Patriot Act...I still blame the Congress (the REAL power in this country) for voting for it right away. "Oh, but we NEED it!" coming from a cabinet member doesn't sound convincing to me.
Elections: Even if the disenfranchisment story is all true (94,000 purged, was it?), there was still one thing that stopped Gore: voter stupidity. In Palm Beach county (which, BTW, is only half an hour from here), the little arrow next to Gore's name didn't seem to mean anything. :rolleyes: I've seen the ballot - only a true asshat would mess that up - and, apparently, there were 19,000 asshats in P.B. County. Easy Gore win otherwise. "Make it easier"...please, voting is important, perhaps people should take some responsibility (gasp ;) ) and double-check things.
Then there's the recount itself, and counting dimpled ballots. They had a system down well, so why stop it? Here's why: a few days after the election, MSNBC got a hold a bunch of ballots and styli used, and tried to purposely make a dimple in the ballot. They couldn't do it! Either nothing happened, or it punched through the card. That raises the question...where did they come from then? One possibility is that the automatic counting machines from Nov. 8 created those marks. Last I checked, a machine can't vote. :D Ok, not funny, but still.
Now, I'm not a die-hard Bush supporter - in fact, every political post I make here seems to confuse me more (or get me nowhere). I agree that's there's problems that I don't like, and then feel like just dealing with them - all in the span of ten minutes of typing. WTF is wrong with me? :(
[ September 02, 2004: Message edited by: WMD ]
Aloone_Jonez:
quote:Originally posted by Sauron / B0B:
While I do not agree with everything that President Bush has done while he was in office. I do feel that he best represents my interests as a citizen of the United States of America, and if I had the ability to vote in the 2004 election, I would vote for him.
--- End quote ---
Hang on a second, no offence or anything but doesn
flap:
quote:Because of this I feel that gay couples should be able to sign a legally binding contract declaring their love, thus giving them the same rights as a married couple.
--- End quote ---
Why not let them get married then?
[ September 02, 2004: Message edited by: flap ]
Laukev7:
WMD: Yes, you could argue that many of the characteristics of fascism have been present for a long time in the US (such as the corporatism and the nationalism). However, only recently have they all really come together. I think the point when the US could be qualified a fascist state for the first time was in the mid-term of the Bush administration, after he passed the PATRIOT Act and anti-labour laws, for example.
Of course, as you point out, Bush is not the sole responsible of the situation. Though I think that Bush and his neoconservative cronies have contributed the most to put the US in deep trouble, both parties as well as Congress are deeply corrupt (after all, Democratic politicians such as Kerry have also voted for the PATRIOT Act and the war). Like for any fascist state, the complicity of the whole government and part of the people was required. However, what must also be taken into account is the fact that the PATRIOT Act has been passed in a hurry, and no one had actually read it.
I hope for you that the PATRIOT Act gets repealed. And fortunately, there is an independent media. I can only hope that the tendency reverses, but you can't just expect that problem to solve itself. I understand your situation, but the best course of action is to denounce the tendency, not assume that other administrations are going to save you. Don't forget Nazi Germany, where the democracy wasn't restored until the end of a bloody war.
[ September 02, 2004: Message edited by: Laukev7 / BOB ]
WMD:
quote:However, what must also be taken into account is the fact that the PATRIOT Act has been passed in a hurry, and no one had actually read it.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, I know, that's why I blame the Congress - they didn't bother to read it. Usually if it isn't read, the person doesn't vote (like Kerry, out campaigning, has voted for hardly anything). But the Senate went 99 to 1 on a law nobody read? :rolleyes:
quote:I hope for you that the PATRIOT Act gets repealed.
--- End quote ---
Thank you .
quote:I can only hope that the tendency reverses, but you can't just expect that problem to solve itself.
--- End quote ---
I can practically guarentee a Democrat winning in '08 if Bush gets reelected. And if he doesn't, there's a Democrat in '04. And I don't expect all hell to break loose if he's reelected. All law is reversible, which inevitably happens (Prohibition).
[ September 02, 2004: Message edited by: WMD ]
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