people, I'm begging you to consider that, now that Obama confirmed it with his vote for the FISA/telecomm amnesty bill, there is not enough difference between the two major party candidates to matter....just as in 2004, the choice is the democrat who is a member of Skull and Bones, or the Republican incumbant president who is a member of Skull and Bones....

In 5 the last 7 elections, father or son Bush has been elected president or VP. This is a distraction, not a campaign. As the national debt and trade dedt rise, along with unemployment and home foreclosures.....this is a circus provided by the PTB....the folks who finance "the work" of the two major right wing politcal parties in the US, to keep all of us sheeple from even asking, let alone discussing, "gee, why do the French have a Gini of 28 while ours is 45, why do they have close to balanced trade and a strong currency, 5 weeks vacation, job security, the best publicly funded medical care in the world, early retirement, generous pension benefits, a minimum wage twice as high as ours is... when low taxes and less government programs are said to make for a more robust and a better society....we won't even talk about all that here...it's not like this is a politics forum, or anything.

I'm losing respect for you guys.....it isn't about McCain vs. Obama...it's about the power elite effing the rest of us up the ***..... but, isn't Obama a unifier, and wow!!! The polls show it's a dead heat. The only thing "dead" is us and our country if we don't reject both these pathetically similar, status quo preserving, and obsessively pro-military/pro-Likud presidential "choices"!

host...I honestly dont know what you expect from "us guys".

You raise the issues of trade, health care, job security and minimum wage, etc....and then compare McCain and Obama on their supposed similar pro-military, pro-Likud policies.

Leaving aside the false comparisons of their respective foreign policies....compare their domestic policies.....trade, health care, job security/workers rights, taxes, etc. Do you honestly believe they are both right wing parties? Pathetically similar? I dont think so.

I understand your real concern with the PTB....and yet I still havent seen a solution that is viable in today's political climate in the US.

There is a real choice and I think most see that. It may not be as distinct in all respects as you would like, particularly as it relates to national security....but I think you have to accept that you dont represent the vast majority of American voters.

Thats not to say that your views are not important and should be silenced or ignored, but rather they are a goal that some of us share....and there is only one means to move closer to achieving that goal...and it sure as hell aint with McCain and a Republican Congress.

For me, it is NOT the "lesser of two evils" nonsense and I dont think anyone who knows me would call me "sheepy" and blindly following the pack.

It's about the power elite. Yes, but who do you suggest to elect? Those are the 2 choices. If we reject both choices, what option do we have? Oh, the independent candidates because they always have such a shot of making it in office. The only thing that they do is take votes away, usually from the better of the 2 evils.

i'm pretty sympathetic with the point that host makes--this despite the fact that terms like "ptb" say so little that is concrete that i find it problematic to use them--the result is that sometimes it takes a while to get off the subject of a sentence and to the verb---which i get away with in publickhouses better than i do when i am writing stuff. like anyone i suppose.

there is no doubt that the american class system--broadly construed to move it away from simply referring to folk who have capital--constitutes an oligarchy which is split into factions and that those factions manoever around the two political parties in order to influence differently the distribution of resources to their own advantage--it is also obvious that there several ways of understanding what advantage leans on--in general, the neoliberal set tends to see it as decontextualized (in ideological terms) and the rest in more contextual terms--so there are differences over what kind of attention should be paid to system maintenance and how much of it should be paid. and there is little doubt that these are tactical fights.

this is the american political spectrum. nothing else.
this spectrum is a function of the political history of the united states spread over the past 150 years or so. one of the main features of that history has been a sustained war on political opposition to the system itself.
it has been a differentially successful war, depending on how you look at it---from 2008, though, it's hard to see it as other than a reactionary triumph and that the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in as other than an effect.

there's nothing particularly Amazing about recognizing the fact of class domination in the united states. it IS kinda amazing that once you say: there it is, sports fans, right in front of you---you position yourself outside the dominant political discourse.

and the machinery grinds on either way, no matter what you do.
if you decide: "this is fucked up"---and it is---and then opt out, the machinery grinds on anyway.
traditionally, low voter turnout benefits republicans.

so you may hold your nose and play this absurd game anyway---and no matter what you think, the machinery grinds on. we're all free like that.
that's the way in which we are free.

sometimes i imagine an organized and vocal voter boycott of a national election that's just too obviously about nothing, that is too obviously itself nothing---i imagine it taking hold, so that the turnout of registered voters is down to, say 10%--and i imagine the television infotainment coverage, whichj would treat that 10% like it was 100%--there's no outside. that's how things operate. we're free like that too.

the 24/7 "news" outlets treat the election like its an actual contest because 24/7 is alot of time to fill and you don't want to talk too much about bummers like the wars in iraq and afghanistan, or the dick-waving at iran, or the economic crises, or various social crises---24/7 is alot of time to fill and what you fill it with determines alot about what us free and free-thinking americans think freely about freedom. so a nice sporting event election is good for ratings, good for television, good for 24/7 because a nice sporting event election shows you that everything's ok. you can't have sporting events if the world around them is too outta whack and so there we are, sporting event election. "what's mc-cain goona say next" is a whole lot smaller a problem than is "what the fuck is the bush administration doing with respect to iran?"....but it's theater and we all know it's theater. it's july, for chrissake.

all this is the case, i think, but it is still true that not having another republican administration is preferable to having one.

dc_dux, I want you to consider two examples of why I think it is hopeless to attempt to work within "the system" as it is presently structured....it is because the PTB ARE "the system"...it's their system....one theme.... war through strength.....belligerence equals profit...and we musn't ever let the sheeple graze near the French side of the fence....or, they might ask.... how do so many of those Frenchmen enjoy a better life with such high taxes and big government?

Read the page that dispalys and the page that follows.....it's
"bomb, bomb, bomb" Bob Lovett at the Ex-Comm...chasing away Adlai's saner view....bonesman Bob from Jupiter Island.... of the opposite party and out of power, but still sitting in JFK's crisis committee, to drown out Stevenson....notice that JFK raises the point that it might be a good idea to consider all POV.....it's only about millions of lives hanging in the balance:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fxz...bkrRBmzQ4EikgA

....and here is how an appointment, outside the sphere of influence of Bob Lovett's li'l Jupiter Island circle of bonesmen, spooks, and mega rich industrialists, was received, even from the members of Carter's own effing party.....
I'm done, dc_dux...done with the pretense, remember the Stone's song lyrics:

"let's drink to the stay at home voter....the choice of cancer or polio....."

I share what I know and discover, as in my newest thread here....I can lead the grazing party to water, but I can't make 'em drink....and no offense to you, personally, dc_dux. I respect you, and your knowledge, experience and opinion....and I genuinely want to know what you think, even as it appears that, in my anger and frustration, I am driving you away. i apologize for that, but this is a dark, dark, month...and the blissful "sunnyness". coming from the Obama supporters, is a tragedy of denial IMO, not a celebration......

It's a bit too soon but think Obama has a slight edge at the moment. A lot can happen in the next few months.

Well, I hate to quote my own response, but I was wondering if Sarah Palin qualifies as a UFO???? I definitely think so. I see this as McCain's key to winning.

I think Obama would win in a landslide if he wasn't black and had a Muslim sounding name. Palin probably won't matter much except for a slight negative drag on the Republican ticket. A lot depends on whether the young people actually register and vote this time.

I think Bush will win in a landslide in some states because the electronic fraud.. i mean.. "voting" machines were never reset. :p