US: myth of the two party system by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
crossposted from Al Jazeera
October 31, 2010

“The two-party system has given this country the war of Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate of Nixon and the incompetence of Carter. Saying we should keep the two-party system simply because it is working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life rafts.”
—Eugene J. McCarthy, 1978

If John McCain were president, we can never be exactly sure what would be happening, but I think we can make some educated speculations.

First of all, the “banksters” would be receiving their carte blanche bailouts and Ben Bernanke would have been re-appointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Discard Alternate Reality: McCain Wins! by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
July 24, 2010

I just saw “Inception” — a great, highly imaginative movie about the alternate reality of dreams.  And so I got to thinking.  Suppose the barons of the Fed and Wall Street had been able to do just a bit more of their behind-the-scenes legerdemain (which, we continue to find out, goes on all the time) and postpone the September 15, 2008 Lehman Brothers meltdown until, let’s say, November 7, 2008.  That would have been a couple of days after the 2008 election and, funnily enough, on the Gregorian calendar the 91st anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  As it happened, McCain had overtaken Obama in the polls by mid-September 2008, when the bankruptcy did occur, with the subsequent collapse of the real estate bubble, the subsequent collapse of the economy, the Paulson/Bush first bank bailout, and so forth and so on.

But if the collapse had not occurred then, if it had somehow been postponed until after the election, if McCain had maintained the momentum that he had had in mid-September, Obama’s best rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, the aging cancer survivor might actually have become President.  (And guess who would have been Vice-President.)  And so, let’s look at a list of what might have happened in that alternate reality of a McCain Presidency, comparing it to what has really happened under the Obama Presidency.  Has to be a big difference, no?  After all, the (remaining) Obama supporters and the Democratic Leadership Council (http://www.dlc.org/) tell us so.

Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Phoniness By Robert S. Becker

By Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
April 19, 2010

Holden Caulfield, the self-described if suspect expert on phoniness in The Catcher in the Rye, would have a field day.  Phoniness abounds, shredding a sense of fair play, from predatory lending, Ponzi schemes, gouging credit card companies, greedy medical insurers, insider trading, egregious campaign betrayals, sports steroid usage, mock journalism, doctored government agency reports or disgrace for the west’s most durable institution, the Catholic Church, inadvertently teaching by negative example – how not to deal with its own pedophilia.

Every week breaks new thresholds for backsliding, subterfuge, and hypocrisy.  Phoniness undermines hope, especially remaining correlated with wealth and fame.  Karl Rove, the master of guile, is revered, with his own soapbox; W., who mouthed his every deception, is a well-heeled stage monkey; and my favorite, one Alberto Gonzales, the amnesiac attorney general who infected our Justice Dept. with criminal schemes, well, okay, he’s a shyster lawyer having trouble finding work.

Double Doom Deflected: McCainiac & Sarah Sycophant By Robert S. Becker

By Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
February 9, 2010

I never trusted John McCain because he never struck me as stable or principled – plus his grasp of ideas and facts fluctuated like glare off water.  My judgment focused not on his positions per se, nor successful charade to seem less Republican than his rightwing voting record proves.  For years, he parlayed his mavericky shtick, though on a pinhead of issues, until caving hard to extremist leverage, fully visible this season.

Never has he wavered from shoot-first, jingoistic belligerence, using one bad neo-con war to launch another, and another.  This never-say-die brawler would refight (and lose) Vietnam again.  Still, it made sense that he took the GOP nomination, for those goofy rivals made McCain look nearly-normal: the craven panderer Romney or heart-felt fundamentalist Huckabee, the ex-minister more deep-fried, born-again than W. ever was.

Barack Obama, Heaven Sent for GOP, Part II by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
Oct. 29, 2009

Last week, we discussed why President Obama was heaven-sent for the GOP, pre-election. In my view (disagreed with by several commentators who made their cases very well I thought), he was the only prospective Democratic candidate who could have beaten John McCain. This was especially true if the Bush Administration had somehow been able to postpone the bursting forth of the economic crisis for less than two months. As is well known to BuzzFlash readers, it had of course been building for several years under Georgite economic policies. It is likely in retrospect that the “free-market” decision to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt was, first, in their minds, the way to put things off. For if they had known what was going to happen both to the economy and their election chances, they would have done everything in their power to prevent that occurrence.

The Daily Show: From Here to Neutrality

Dandelion Salad

The Daily Show
Oct. 26, 2009

John McCain asks the government to stay away from the Internet with the Internet Freedom Act of 2009.

more about “The Daily Show: From Here to Neutrality“, posted with vodpod

see

MOC: The Easy Way To Win on Net Neutrality – Internet F*cking Freedom!!

Barack Obama, Heaven Sent for GOP, Part I by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
Oct. 21, 2009

It was likely the GOP would lose the 2008 election, although that was hardly a sure thing. If the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent chain reaction in finance capitalism had occurred on November 18 instead of September 18, McCain might have won. If Hillary Clinton had somehow been able to pull out the Democratic nomination, whether or not the financial collapse and the revelation of the new Great Recession that had actually started some months earlier came before or after November 5, 2008, McCain might well have won anyway. (Given the way that Clinton ran her primary campaign, relying more and more on racism as it progressed, it is highly likely that huge numbers of African-Americans would have stayed home on election day.) But the financial collapse did occur before Election Day and Barack Obama was the nominee and he did win.

Max Blumenthal: Republican Gomorrah + Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party

Updated: Oct 2, 2009 added a talk by Max Blumenthal

Dandelion Salad

talkingsticktv
September 25, 2009

Interview with Max Blumenthal author of “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party”.

Find out more via Max’s website at:

http://www.maxblumenthal.com

more about “Max Blumenthal: Republican Gomorrah“, posted with vodpod

***

Updated

Max Blumenthal: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party

talkingsticktv
October 02, 2009

Talk by Max Blumenthal author of “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party” given September 24, 2009 at Town Hall Seattle. Find out more via Max’s website at:
http://www.maxblumenthal.com

more about “Max Blumenthal: Inside the Movement t…“, posted with vodpod

see

Max Blumenthal: The Unauthorized 9.12 Teabagger Tour

If McCain Were President by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
Sept. 5, 2009

“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers and all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop; and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
Mario Savio, Sproul Hall, Berkeley, 1964

If John McCain were president, we can never be exactly sure what would be happening right now, but I think we can have a little inkling.

First of all, the banksters would be receiving their TARP money and Bernanke would have been re-appointed Fed Chairman.

Robert Gates would probably still be the Secretary of Defense and Sarah Palin would be offering late night comedians endless fodder for their monologues.

Washington & the Coup in Honduras + U.S. continues to train Honduran soldiers

Dandelion Salad

By Eva Golinger
Postcards from the Revolution
15 July 2009

• The Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup.

• The Department of State and the US Congress funded and advised the actors and organizations in Honduras that participated in the coup.

• The Pentagon trained, schooled, commanded, funded and armed the Honduran armed forces that perpetrated the coup and that continue to repress the people of Honduras by force.

• The US military presence in Honduras, that occupies the Soto Cano Palmerola military base, authorized the coup d’etat through its tacit complicity and refusal to withdraw its support of the Honduran military involved in the coup.

[...]

The Washington Lobby

Republican Senator John McCain, ex US presidential, helped coordinate the visit of a coup regime delegation to Washington last week. McCain is well known for his opposition to governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries in the region considered “anti-imperialist”. McCain also maintains very close ties to the Cuban exile community in Miami. McCain is also Chairman of the Board of the International Republican Institute (IRI) that has funded the coup participants in Honduras. McCain offered the services of a lobby firm in Washington, closely tied to him, the Cormac Group, that organized a press conference for the coup regime delegation at the National Press Club on June 7th. McCain also helped set up several meetings in Congress with the traditional Cuban-American representatives and those general “Chávez-haters”, such as Connie Mack, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mel Martinez.

[...]

via Postcards from the Revolution: Washington & the Coup in Honduras: Here is the Evidence

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U.S. continues to train Honduran soldiers

Dems add long-sought hate crimes measure to Defense bill

Dandelion Salad

By Halimah Abdullah
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON

Just days after Arizona Sen. John McCain forged an unusual bipartisan alliance with the White House to cut $1.75 billion in increased spending for the F-22 jet fighter, congressional Democratic leaders on Wednesday added a hate-crimes measure to the must-pass bill.

The move, backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sparked heated debate on the Senate floor as McCain unsuccessfully sought to remove the hate crimes amendment, known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, from the broader defense spending measure on the grounds that the two matters are unrelated.

[...]

via Dems add long-sought hate crimes measure to Defense bill | McClatchy

see

The Hate Crimes Bill: How Not to Remember Matthew Shepard By Alexander Cockburn

Exclusive: The First Amendment in trouble… again! by Rocket Kirchner

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Buyer’s Remorse: Is it too late to swap Obama for McCain? by Mike Whitney

Dandelion Salad

by Mike Whitney
Global Research, May 17, 2009

Anyone who has ever wasted good money on a clunker only to drop the transmission 15 minutes after leaving the car-lot, knows the feeling. It’s like a swift-kick in the groin followed by weeks of fist-pounding rage. It’s called buyer’s remorse; “Gawd, I wish I hadn’t bought that piece of dogshite!”

There are probably a lot of former-Obama supporters feeling that same agonizing sense despair now that President Rainbow has done an about-face on every campaign promise he made. So much for “truth in advertising”, eh?

What a disaster. Did anyone know it was gonna be this bad?

The Georgian trap + US strategy Russia’s disintegration

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

April 14, 2009

More at
http://therealnews.com/t/in…

As thousands demand Saakashvili’s resignation, Paul Jay investigates roots of 2008 Russia-Georgia War.

more about “The Georgian trap“, posted with vodpod

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US strategy Russia’s disintegration

The October Surprise (a bit late) by Steven Jonas, MD

by Steven Jonas, MD
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
January 6, 2009

Many folks on the Left (U.S. and otherwise) were sure that the Georgites were going to spring an “October Surprise” just before the 2008 election. It would be “something big” to aid McCain’s chances which, especially with the Wall Street collapse that started in September 2008, needed some pretty big aiding. It would have something to do with “national security,” and it would come in October, that is if it had not come already. As examples of the latter were those absolutely firm predictions by authorities on the Left “in the know” that there would be a U.S. attack on Iran, “for sure,” as far back as June 2006. Certain other not-so-authoritative sources for a variety of reasons thought at the time that this was nonsense. For one thing, once Jim Baker had installed Bob Gates in the Defense Department, with a strong chorus of support for a “no” from the Joint chiefs, that one just wasn’t going to fly.

War or Peace? By Richard C. Cook

Note: The longer version was published on October 26, 2008:
Special Report: War or Peace? The World After the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election By Richard C. Cook

by Richard C. Cook
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com

November 22, 2008

The World After the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

INTRODUCTION

We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook

Originally uploaded by Lorri37

World war or world peace could be the blunt choice that will face either Barack Obama or John McCain when one of them is elected president of the United States on Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

For a major eruption of violence to be averted, the new president must deal positively with the reappearance of Russia on the world stage, the emergence of China as an economic force, and the aspirations of all the nations on earth for a decent and secure way of life.

Making matters much more dangerous are the ongoing financial crisis, along with what appears to be the start of a worldwide economic recession.

It is Europe, not the U.S., from which proposals are emerging for a transformative approach to the most compelling issues. But will it be enough?

THE DISASTROUS PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH

In December 2000, at the time the U.S. Supreme Court was intervening in the disputed vote count in Florida to name Republican George W. Bush president over Democrat Al Gore, the U.S. stock market began to crash. The “dot.com” bubble, based largely on foreign investment in internet companies and technology stocks, deflated. By the time Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, signs of a recession were appearing.

This did not prevent the Bush administration from initiating a $450 billion tax cut for the upper income brackets that Congress approved in March 2001. A similar cut was subsequently enacted in May 2003.

On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City were attacked by airplanes flying into them, followed that morning by an air attack on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Al Qaeda was blamed.