bsmix

Which is why Obama should choose Gen. Wesley Clark as VP. I hope you are being sarcastic tho.

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Son of JayJamJah

If anyone thinks there will be any difference between Bush and Obama or McCain other then media perception you've got a lot to learn about politics. I've seen nine US presidents since I've been here and they are all exactly the same once they get into office, they push for the lobbyists who back their party with the most money and try not make any decisions that will be immediately impactful so they do not have to address the American people if their initiative fails.

There are no more ignorant people in America then those who think Bush is an awful president, he just happens to be president at an awful time.

Piss Me Off

I know that's very true with UK politics as well. All the main parties are very similar, they differ only in name and reputation.

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bsmix

Hey I agree American politics are ****ed and I'm not really a part of any party, but you're saying we would have gone to war even if a democrat had been in power for the last 8 years instead of Bush? Make us learned then. How was he not an awful president? Only one major terrorist attack? Ha I guess I'd argue that there is no one more ignorant than a person who thinks Bush was a decent president.

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Son of JayJamJah

So it would seem. I spent the entirety of my 20's trying to fight what was becoming very clear, there just is no difference. You might like a persons personality more or less there might be a more charismatic speaker one year, maybe someone else has blue collar roots, but in the end you get some rich guy (or gal) who has been rich and in politics for so long that they have little concept (if any) of what it's like to be a part of the middle class let alone in poverty.

You need so much help getting into office that anyone would feel the pressure to return favors to those who got them there. So it's not like their bad people, they are just weak people. Getting elected requires you to lie, cheat and sometimes steal, there is no way around it. You have to say things you don't believe, lie to peoples faces when they ask you questions that are important to them and spend a portion of your money trying to ruin someones life with smear campaigns because that's what they're gonna do for you.

Anyone who knowingly signs up for this is either crazy or has loose ethics and morals, those type of people do not impact change.

TheBig3

This thread has gone from a fruitful exchange of ideas, making people analyze their beliefs and refine them to a pissing match bemoaning why the system hasn’t handed you perfect candidates. If anything that’s weak.

Politics is not for the weak at all. To hang in their day after day, for a cause you think is good (despite what you think) while the media, opponents and constituents rip you to shreds is harder than you could possibly imagine. If you had to bring together a country as divided as the states are right now, you’d do what it takes too. Lying, as Strauss once wrote, can be highly noble. It was once said that the administration knew of the Pearl Harbor plans and let it happen to convince the country WWII was a needed action to address. Would you have preferred us to stay isolated?

People see the system for all its flaws, for everything they don’t have and they give up, like a child expecting to be handed things by their mother and when it isn’t, the go pout. The world is ugly friends, and the machines and levels that run are by proxy also ugly, but someone needs to do the dirty work. And when they do what they must to achieve and end, we look at them and we chastise them for a job we could not do, and a task we’d never take.

Maybe I’m a fan boi, and so my opinion shouldn’t count but I’ve worked on two campaigns now, I’m looking at a third this fall, and the cushy offices and kickbacks you read about in papers and see in films never manage to show the godless campaigning these people have to do, knocking on doors of people their trying to help, never knowing if this will be the house that got screwed by your policies and screams at you. They never show the 5 seconds you have from that door to the next where you have to pick yourself back up because for the next person, you’re the only hope they have left that someone might allot them the money to get medicine for the kids and pay the rent. That keeps the jobs in our hands and not the beaten children of the third world.

Maybe you don’t like politics and maybe it isn’t for you. But don’t tell me how it is. Some people see the flaws and try to fix them, and some just quit. For me I understand that the risks of giving up are too grave to ever turn my back on those who day in and day out can’t tell where life will take them.
For every story of greedy and lust that comes out, there are countless politicians and the state and municipal level that wake up every day for everyone else. They don’t get any air time because you’d be uninterested. But their out there, and they could use one less kick once in awhile.

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QFT.

JayJamJah, I see some of what you're saying, but you just sound really jaded if you honestly believe that Bush was just "president at an awful time."

Son of JayJamJah

I am jaded by the system in the sense that I don't have faith that it's headed in the right direction, but Bush (and any President) is simply a figure head. Had 9\11 not happened there is no way we'd be in Iraq or Afghanistan or even talking about North Korea and Iran in the mainstream media. Those are the major criticisms of Bush.

I don't know how many of you lived through Vietnam, but I came here (US) just as it was heating up, and things were a lot like they are now as far as people rushing to pick sides and find someone to blame. War is awful, and like death very few people can comprehend the need for such unfortunate things as a reality of life. Myself included. My Wife's father was in the house of representatives in Ohio, both of her brothers work is Washington, they would argue with most of my criticisms of the US political machine, but even all of them would agree when pressed, who the president is makes very, very little difference.

I'm not saying anything to defend GWB, I can't cite one decision he's made that has had a tangible positive effect on my life. However I think it's far less ignorant to take my position then to purpose he is. A) Evil B) Incompetent C) Not trying to do whatever he can to make this country better.

One thing Bigthree said that is dead on... It's not for the weak, these people deal with a lot of crap and the vast majority believe what they are doing will in the end be for the better. I just don't agree that the ends justifies the means.

Miltamec Soundsquinaez

[QUOTE=TheBig3KilledMyRainDog;496198]
Politics is not for the weak at all. To hang in their day after day, for a cause you think is good (despite what you think) while the media, opponents and constituents rip you to shreds is harder than you could possibly imagine. If you had to bring together a country as divided as the states are right now, you’d do what it takes too. Lying, as Strauss once wrote, can be highly noble. It was once said that the administration knew of the Pearl Harbor plans and let it happen to convince the country WWII was a needed action to address. Would you have preferred us to stay isolated?

JayJamJay said earlier that all politicians are necessarily corrupt; and that may be true in our system. I don't understand why we can't raise the presidents pay to at least $2-3 million per year. We have professional athletes who make about 10 times that, and just in endorsement deals. You're talking about the throne of an empire, becoming the leader of the 'greatest country on earth', and arguably the head of the most important job in the world.

We haven't a president who wasn't corrupted by lobbyists since Jimmy Carter. It may have even gone back farther. All I know is there are 3 main reasons a person in today's world aspires to be president:
1) To attain wealth
2) To hoard power over us
3) They genuinely want to help out this country, and the world.

We need to pay the president more money, so he's not so likely to make friends with lobbyists. We should have an I.Q. test for the candidates. America is so broke up, and most can't even decide whether Bush, McCain, and Obama are even intelligent people. I think once this country actually had intelligent presidents. But now, it's in the corporations best interests to market candidates with looser morals, and yes, I'm making the correlation between loose morals and low intelligence.

Since Reaganomics starting tearing apart our middle class in 1980, we have been becoming a slave state, and in today's society we have to work like slaves just to keep the roof over our head. Or we're busy going to college, and still working 30 hours to pay tuition. Or we're out sipping wine on a yacht, 'saying f*ck the world,' because they have worked in that world, and they hate it, because they know it's busy, busy, busy.

We're so busy in today's world, we don't have time to learn about the issues, or the candidates. We just want to see some 20 second clip of an oppressive dictatorial candidate banging his gavel on T.V. to make us feel safe. We're so f*cking stupid we don't even read any more. We read about how to make money and God.

Read about inequalities if you want to make the world a better place, PEACE!!

lucifer_sam

That completely undermines the system of values which is the fundamental basis of the American Presidency. The President isn't an athlete or celebrity. He is the spokesman for a nation.

As an optimist, I genuinely believe that every president's deepest, most innate desire is to help this country. Generally, the weaker, more corruptable people are eschewed by our democratic system long before they attain presidency (with a handful of exceptions).

Again, that's not what our founding fathers intended. Yes, they were intelligent. But it was their huge conviction and high morality which spurned them to create the articles which defined our Constitution. And it's not always the smartest that make the best presidents. Ulysses S. Grant is often regarded as one of the most intelligent, yet he was a puppet while in office.

I'm going to be honest, I don't know entirely what you mean here. The United States has one of the strongest middle classes in the world, with about 95% of its population residing within. It is not a country like China, where the top 5% are responsible for 75% of their GDP.

If this is an attack on one or both of the upcoming Presidential candidates, it is misguided and certainly confusing. I have misgivings about the American people myself, but I consider America to be a fundamentally intelligent country. I think that many Americans care about the issues but are reluctant to take further action. If you want to change this course of reality, please don't condemn us and ostracize us from political action. Tell us what we should do.

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