It's the economy, redux...

[Mythsaje]

The power-brokers in D.C. will never give up the power they've gained by dealing with the Republicans and the DLC and Blue Dog Dems...the ones who want and need and hunger for those campaign contributions that are pushing a Presidential campaign up to around a quarter of a billion dollars to run.

The insurance companies, the banks, the credit card companies, the pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness, and the huge retail giants are BUYING our fucking politicians. Well over half of them don't work for us anymore. They're looking for short term profits because, well, they can always diversify if things get rocky in one area. So what if American jobs vanish to be replaced by even lower paying ones. That's not their problem and not something most of these rich fuckers we're electing to office can even see.

The safety net has been eviscerated. If someone loses their livelihood, is struck by a serious illness, or otherwise has a run of bad luck, they can fall all the way to the bottom because there is no one there to catch them. The "Family Values" crowd only cares about the state of your souls--they could give a rat's ass about the state of your bodies.

People can't just get better jobs because, well, they can't afford to educate themselves. College tuition rates are staggeringly high, grants barely cover anything anymore--assuming you can even get them--and in an economy where almost everyone is having to pay out more and more of their income to cover all their debts, a student loan--if available--is just one bill too much for most people to handle.

We need to clear the crap out of the air and start to deal with things that will make the lives of Americans better again. We need to see real change, and see a real plan for getting things done. As we approach this new election cycle, we're faced with a real choice--to vote for people who support and defend the status quo, who aren't willing to admit the system as it is has been broken, or vote for candidates who are fully aware of how bad things have gotten and have a plan to do something about it.

For the past several years we've watched our candidates play patty-cake rather than striking back at the Republican attacks. Playing nice isn't getting them, or us, anywhere. Come next November we're going to be faced with the monumental task of choosing another President to lead us out of the moral and economic quagmire that has become the Bush legacy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'll vote for ANY Dem over a Republican. But I'm not impressed with too many of the candidates. I could reiterate why I don't support Hillary, but by now it's getting pretty redundant. I think attacking the other candidates does very little to help matters.

When the time comes to choose a candidate to run against the Republican nominee, it's looking as though the people are going to choose Hillary. I personally think that's a terrible choice. She might be able to win. If she's the nominee, I sure as hell HOPE she'll win. But she's tied into the very power brokers in D.C. who've sank us into this whole pit of despair, economically speaking. It's just going to be more of the same.

Obama would be better, frankly. I think he's catching a bit of the populist message now, and realizing that it has a resonance.

Hillary's probably in the lead primarily because she's a known quantity to most people. She's getting at least a five percent bump because of name recognition. People know who she is.

She's my third choice for a candidate, when you get right down to it. I don't trust her and I don't think she's going to represent us very well. She may do an okay job, but I STILL don't really know what she stands for, and, frankly, I think her comment regarding nuclear weapons was rather disturbing. I KNOW we've used nukes in the past to deter potential attackers, but whether we continue to use them to keep various nations from using THEIR nukes isn't the issue. It's whether we can justify using nukes for any other reason. I say no. She says "well, I'm not sure. Maybe. Nothing should be off the table."

I don't like the sound of that at all.

I like Kucinich. I really do. But he's not a candidate that can win against the Republican smear machine. They'll eat him for lunch. He's not even on most Democrats' radar screens. That's not a good sign at all.

Only one candidate has consistently fired back every time they've attacked, who's dealt telling rhetorical counterpunches EVERY time they've swung at him. He understands the issues, can speak to even conservative voters while still carrying a populist message, and isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty. He has that personal touch that helped make Clinton the popular president he was, and has more concrete ideas for fixing things than any of the others as far as I can see.

I'd really like to see Edwards get the nod and, frankly, I'm baffled by anyone who doesn't see what kind of a candidate he is. If he gets the nomination, he WILL be our next President. And that, as far as I'm concerned, may well be the best news we'd have received all decade.

We could use some good news for a change.

[Selatius]

1. I think Edwards would be a good populist president, but I don't see him winning

He's simply ignored by the corporate news outlets, probably because he keeps talking about fighting poverty. That kind of effort requires--you guessed it--wealth redistribution. They know it. Edwards knows it. People who advocate wealth redistribution to fight poverty and provide opportunities to the middle class have a problem with the industrialists.

Many people have fought them before, and several leaders have fallen challenging their power, the one off the top of my head being Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry… Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong… with capitalism… There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.