Julian Assange is the new Ralph Nader.

[pnwmom]

Both holier-than-thou narcissists who are ready to sacrifice anything to their drive to get attention.

And, for some reason, they both imagine themselves as topplers of a U. S. Democratic President. Assange has already called for the resignations of Clinton and Obama. Where was Assange when Bush was in office?

If Sarah Palin manages to pull out a victory in 2012, it will be because Assange has helped by chopping Hillary Clinton off at the knees, then going after Obama. Obama will never be able to put Hillary in a V.P. slot, which would have assured a Palin defeat. And millions of voters will be ignorant enough to choose Palin, believing that HER flagrantly Christian administration would never be as unethical as that horrible Obama's.

You don't like Obama? Just wait.

[Violet_Crumble]

1. 'Where was Assange when Bush was in office?'

He was doing exactly what he's doing now, but it appears some have no problem with it until it's done on the watch of a Democratic president...

[Bluerthanblue]

56. bullshit- Assange didn't release this kind of

crap when Bush was in office, he didn't have access to what he has now. He didn't have the support or the funds he has now.

If you have to twist the truth to support Mr.Assange, you must not really have much to work with.

[pnwmom]

60. How do you know what leaks he had in the first two years?

How do you know he released everything he had access to?

That's putting a lot of faith in an organization completely lacking in transparency (though they sure like to talk about how important transparency is).

[Violet_Crumble]

2. Oops. Posting hiccup! n/t

[pnwmom]

When did he call for Bush to resign? n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

9. I don't know and don't care...

Seriously, if yr problem with Wikileaks is some 'waaaaah! it's not okay to embarress Democrats! Only Republicans!' then that's really silly, imo

[pnwmom]

55. I don't care who is embarrassed. I care about who is endangered.

Including our individual allies in foreign countries who thought they were helping us confidentially.

And I care about what critical negotiations could be jeopardized because of Assange's power trip.

I also think that those who are applauding Assange should give a little more thought about why he's turning up now, and why -- out of all the leaders since 2006 -- he's calling for the resignations of Clinton and Obama.

[EmilyKent]

12. Wikileaks only launched in 2006.

And they post what they are given. If they aren't given material on Bush they can't leak it.

Assange isn't operating Wikileaks by himself, he's just the spokesperson for it.

He also functions as a target, for people who don't understand it.

[pnwmom]

50. How do you know he wasn't given plenty of material on Bush? n/t

[Bluerthanblue]

66. If he had the material and didn't use it, then he wasn't "doing exactly

what he's doing today".

It's clear that he didn't have the media mouthpiece he has now, and didn't proclaim that Bush and Cheney should resign.

Much of the material he has released is stuff that happened under Bush Cheney. If he had some of it and chose not to release it then it would be easy to make a case that he was targeting this administration particularly.

Which gives him a political agenda that he claims he doesn't have, and which his supporters on here deny.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pnwmom]

5. Time will tell. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Alas, Assange can't run for president. I'd happily vote for him.

[pnwmom]

6. Millions happily voted for Nader, too.

They weren't so happy with the next 8 years, however.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. I voted for him in '08 and I'm not so happy with the last 10 years.

[Myrina]

14. Funny because Nader didn't decide the 2000 election, SCOTUS did.

If you look at vote counts, Gore won by over 500,000 votes. SCOTUS called it for Dimson. Nader had nothing to do with that.
Get your facts straight.

[smiley]

18. exactly!!

But his haters will still say if he had not been running then Gore would've won by a landslide.

I'm so tired of the Nader bashing.

[pnwmom]

26. The election hinged on 500 votes in Florida, where Nader drew 95.000.

If even 1% of Nader's Florida voters had voted for Gore, the election wouldn't have gone to the Supreme Court.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. And who stopped the recount?

oh yes the USSC... five out of nine justices decided that election, and they were NOT in florida

[pnwmom]

52. As I said, they wouldn't have had the case if Nader hadn't been on the ballot.

Just a fraction of Nader supporters voting for Gore would have changed the election.

[smiley]

46. so you are arguing for a complete 2 party system?

even though our constitution allows otherwise.

and looking back - would you still have supported Lieberman?

[pnwmom]

51. No, I'm not. But I think people should use their common sense

when they're voting. A smart thing to do was what many progressives advocated -- vote trading. That way Greens in other states could have gotten their needed 5% for a ballot slot, but Greens in swing states wouldn't have assisted Bush in beating Gore.

[Puregonzo1188]

69. And every single one of the TEN candidates on the Florida ballots got over 500 votes.

Here are the total election totals for Florida, including write-ins:



George W. Bush Richard Cheney Republican 2,912,790
Albert Gore Jr. Joseph Lieberman Democratic 2,912,253
Ralph Nader Winona LaDuke Green 97,488
Patrick Buchanan Ezola Foster Reform 17,484
Harry Browne Art Olivier Libertarian 16,415
John Hagelin A. Nat. Goldhaber Natural Law 2,281
Monica Moorehead Gloria La Riva World Workers 1,804
Howard Phillips J. Curtis Frazier Constitution 1,371
David McReynolds Mary Cal Hollis Socialist 622
James Harris Margaret Trowe Soc. Workers 562


Are you sure Assange isn't the next James Harris? What John Hagelin?

[smiley]

79. you have just proven the point in my post.

thanks!

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Le Taz Hot]

77. Don't look now, friend

but that's not your call. And Nader supporters are welcome at DU. They just can't advocate his candidacy if he decides to run Third Party.

[smiley]

80. Proudly

and I think I'll be staying here at DU. Thanks for asking!

[pnwmom]

24. The election didn't hinge on 500,000 national votes.

It hinged on 500 Florida votes -- a state where Nader drew 95,000 votes. It never would have ended up before the Supreme Court if it hadn't been so close in FLORIDA.

[EFerrari]

27. Jeb Bush set out to fix Florida well before the election

with voting caging and all kinds of cr@p. Do you seriously believe he and his machine would let 500 votes get in the way?

[pnwmom]

28. I seriously believe that Jeb Bush couldn't have taken that election

if those 95,000 Nader voters had voted for the viable progressive candidate, i.e., Gore.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. You realize thousands of those votes

were caged out of them rolls BEFORE the election for crimes to be committed upwards of twenty years into the future?

[pnwmom]

40. Thousands of OTHER votes were caged before the election.

I'm talking about actual counted Nader votes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. I am jus pointing out where those votes went

you cannot deal with the shenanigans, not my problem.

hate Nader all you want, but you are simply WRONG! It was a coup, a legal coup... using LEGAL means to achieve it.

So what if there were no tanks in the fucking streets? IT WAS A FUCKING COUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Got it? Of course you don't... nader this, nader that.

Can't wait for the fucking empire to fall apart... which by the way was accelerated by that fucking coup....

And yes I have little patience for the propaganda that some people have internalized...

[pnwmom]

43. If the spread was big enough -- such as 95,000 votes --

then Jeb Bush couldn't have pulled off the coup. Obama won precisely because his winning margin was too big to hide. It could have been the same for Gore in Florida if Nader hadn't insisted on being in there, drawing off progressive votes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Keep repeating that

since most of those people WERE FUCKING CAGED AND NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE!

Jesus on a fucking trailer hitch, is this so damn fucking hard to comprehend!

[pnwmom]

48. Wrong. Those were 95,000 actual, counted UNCAGED votes.

But no, I have no idea why this is so hard for you to understand.

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. So it is ok they caged voters

got it.

Good day, good life, I really cannot handle this idiocy any more.

BLAME THE VOTER NOT THE ONES BEHIND THE COUP... it works every fucking time. I mean all those Jews who voted for Buchannan!!!! What were they thinking? Even buchanan got it...

[pnwmom]

59. Of course it isn't okay that they caged any voters. But even with the caging

Gore could have won easily, if he had had even a fraction of the Nader votes.

Of course I don't blame the 5,000 Jewish people who voted for Buchanan because they made a mistake. Even some of Nader's voters have admitted they made a mistake, and I don't blame them either. But Nader didn't make a mistake, so I do hold HIM responsible. He was quoted in numerous interviews about the possibility that his running would hurt Gore -- and he seemed to welcome the fact. He insisted that Bush and Gore were "Tweedledee and Tweedledum" and that it didn't matter if he helped Bush.

And 95,000 uncaged Floridian voters apparently believed him.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. Here is your hint of the day

Those jews didn't vote for buchannan

[pnwmom]

67. They marked their ballots mistakenly, so their votes were

counted for Buchanan.

[burning rain]

75. You can say "crap" here.

This is Democratic Underground, not the priggish Free Republic. :D

[HuckleB]

47. Nader gave SCOTUS the opportunity to do its deed.

He is not an innocent party.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

41. this is funny

I lurked around here a lot back in 2001-2004. I can't believe people are still talking about Ralph Nader.

He didn't steal anyone's vote. I was too young to vote in 2000, but in 2004 the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania sued to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot for some reason. So you know who I voted for? Nobody. So, are you going to be mad at nobody in 2004, for being preferable to me over Kerry? People who disagree with you aren't as stupid as you'd like to believe they are. And if Ralph Nader would have been running, he would have been stealing my vote from "nobody", not from Kerry.

The Democratic Party doesn't own votes. When people vote for who they want to vote for, there's no "theft" involved. That's just the way elections work. It's that simple. And since it's been 10 years, and there's absolutely no reason anybody should still be talking about that like it matters, that's all I have to say about that.

From the way it looks, I may be writing in Julian Assange in 2012.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Union Scribe]

8. Both wrongly hated by apologists for the status quo.

[gateley]

11. I can't agree with you on this, pnwmom. I'm grateful for the 'sunlight'

that's been focused on all the goings-on that shouldn't have been. I realized I'd become too complacent, just accepting "well, that's how it's always been done", but that doesn't make it right.

[EFerrari]

13. For all your posts slamming Assange, you still don't understand

this isn't about Assange OR about Barack Obama.

Amazing.

[Myrina]

15. +10

n/t

[charlie]

16. Assange is your new White Whale, you mean n/t

[Hell Hath No Fury]

21. Careful.

I said essentially the same thing up thread and got deleted.

[KG]

17. hee-hee

too funny. :rofl:

[kayakjohnny]

19. Your post is a reach.

For one thing, anything Obama has coming in 2012 will be of his own doing. Same with Hillary.

For another, I don't see Assange as driving for attention. I think he wants the truth out there, as do a lot of people. He happens to have found a way to make it happen.

You may be more correct about Nader and his ego, but as was pointed out by another poster, it was the supreme court that screwed Al Gore and the rest of us.

And the third point is that if you believe Sarah Palin has any chance at all to be in the White House, for any reason, at any time in history, then you and I just aren't seeing this world in the same way at all. And if you really believe it possible, then please look around and ask some serious questions. Please.

Life will be so much sweeter when you do.

[tekisui]

20. I disagree.

Although, I think they are both great.

[kgnu_fan]

22. Ralph Nader is a hero too.

[BrendaBrick]

81. I agree - and always has been for several decades now!

[JackRiddler]

23. At last! A new head Devil for you to slander the next 10 years!

[Individualist]

25. Fail.

[Taverner]

29. Um, not even

Assange didn't bring down Obama - he did that ALL himself

All Assange did was bring to light how we're all getting screwed. Now we have proof.

Kill the messenger...oh well

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. Wake me up when vehicle safety standards come up

due to Julian Assange.

You really have a poor grasp of events or history.

[myrna minx]

33. This thread is hilarious. What if wikileaks exposes the dangers of the Corvair!??!

:hi: *gasp*

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Don't forget the Pinto

it can really be a GREAT BARBECUE!

On a serious note, I went to a few of those crashes... as a young EMT. They ended up in Tijuana... and while most vehicles can leak gas like a sieve... (just stop the COPS from smoking) the Pinto will go up spectacularly so.

[myrna minx]

36. Wow - I can't even imagine all that you've seen as an EMT.

Did they wind up in Mexico because they were unwanted here and they were subsequently unloaded in Mexico?

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. A lot of those old cars end up all along the border

legally or illegally.

The last pinto I saw as a charred remains was in 1990 on the state highway. Family was damn lucky and were able to get out with just a few burns... I mean they needed care but not in patient hospital care.

The car... was so far gone when the FD got on scene that their concern was cleanup and the Highway People checked to see if the pavement needed repairs. .

We took the family to the hospital to get their burns treated. And yes they were lucky.

They bought it fourth hand from a cousin of a cousin who got it from yet another cousin in LA.

[pnwmom]

62. Maybe you should be studying the history of vote caging

as well as the actual 2000 election results. Then you'd find that caging had nothing to do with the 95,000 Floridians who voted for Nader.

[Better Believe It]

35. If Obama isn't re-elected in 2012 it's because of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange!

And anyone who criticizes President Obama's policies is worse than a terrorist, they are a Assangeist!

So let the character assasination campaign against Assange grow!

Let's see .... first we had the "swiftboat" campaign against John Kerry quickly followed by the character assasination campaign against Ralph Nader and now followed up with a much bigger and more ambitious international character assasination against Julian Assange!

Do your job.

Spread whatever unproven rumors, charges and personal attacks you can find in the media in order to defend America from wild eyed, comminist, subversive terriorists pinkos .... "the professional left" like Mr. Assange.

[Better Believe It]

37. You're just kidding .... right?

[madinmaryland]

38. "Obama will never be able to put Hillary in a V.P. slot" What the fuck

are you talking about. Why would that ever happen and why are you dredging up the primary wars.

Un-recommended.

[pnwmom]

63. Because many here have speculated that if Palin were ever to become

a threat, Clinton would be a powerful candidate as a VP -- and Biden would do well as Secretary of State.

[madinmaryland]

68. That you just "happened" to dredge up.

Nice try.

[MNBrewer]

45. oh, you mean hated irrationally?

Yeah, I do see the similarity.

[TexasObserver]

53. No, he's not. He's a guy who is doing the job of journalism.

It's 2010, nearly 2011. Today's cyber world has a struggle with citizens on one side and mega powers on the other. Our numbers and our ability to collectively concentrate our talents and skills via the internet make us formidable Lilliputians, tying down Gullivers here and there.

Embrace it. Your fears are not justified.

[pnwmom]

65. He's not a journalist. He's a dumper. No journalist would say

that they do what he does -- take leaks of anything and dump them onto the internet.

He's also now turning into an extortionist -- threatening to leak extremely harmful, unredacted documents if he is found guilty of unrelated sex crimes in Sweden.

[girl gone mad]

71. That's exacty what the New York Times, the Guardian..

and other associated news organizations are doing.

[TexasObserver]

76. Of course, he's a journalist.

Your lack of understanding of this entire process doesn't alter that.

[mmonk]

54. If there were more Naders out there, there wouldn't be a need for any Assanges.

[JackDragna]

57. Maybe you haven't noticed..

..but as Ralph Nader cost the Democratic Party nothing, so too is Julian Assange far from some anti-Democratic plant. What his organization has exposed is a shadow government that has its mouthpieces say one thing while the government does another. Of course, this doesn't matter to another blinders-on, party-or-bust Demo who completely ignores how the national party has become the mouthpiece for the wealthy.

[Cali_Democrat]

64. Interesting analysis

nt

[Puregonzo1188]

70. Remember when Bush was President? Remember all the DUers who insisted the difference between

Democrats and Republicans was that Democrats would never tolerate from a President of their own party what the Republicans tolerated from Bush. They didn't put party first, but country first, principles first.

I guess spying on diplomats, the UN, and presiding over war crimes is ok if a Dem does it?


Here's a hint for you--much of the documents released pertain to Bush and Cheney, in fact they show it was Condelezza Rice who started the spying on diplomats program. Clinton continues it. She's Secretary of State now, not Rice.

As far as this Palin nonsense, do you really believe Assange, who Palin wants "hunted down like a terrorist," is helping Palin by making Clinton look "unethical?" Palin would have to reverse her position on Wikileaks to play that card.

[JVS]

72. He really bothers you. Why?

[Imagevision]

73. I disagree, Assange didn't give us Bush

[TheKentuckian]

74. Get over it

[Hissyspit]

78. Your continued demonstration of your lack of knowledge of WikiLeaks, which got up & running in 2007

greatly reduces any credibility you might have on the issue.