Going Upriver: Why what happened 35 yrs. ago matters today

Maybe because Kerry is a poster boy for everything that SUCKS about the Democratic party? A one-time reformer who now supports the status quo. A botoxed, blowdried multi-zillionaire fratboy who claims to be fighting for the working class, while sucking up money from corporate lobbyists. A bland, machine-approved non-candidate who's biggest selling point is that he sucks somewhat less than the incumbent.

The cartoon "South Park" really nailed it the other night. This race comes down to a choice between a "Giant Douche" and a "Turd Sandwich".

POLITICIANS are the heart of the problem here. People so concerned about pleasing everybody that they will say or do ANYTHING to avoid taking a firm, decisive stance.

We don't need another politician. We need somebody with a plan and a vision that wasn't crafted by focus groups and pollsters. Someone who isn't afraid to take a "radical" position, even if it might alienate a few potential voters. And John Kerry ain't it.

I am being PERFECTLY consistent. The "positive things" that he claims he will do will not put money in the pockets of the corporate elites who REALLY run the country. Therefore, they aren't going to be allowed to happen. War is good for Wall Street, therefore it WILL happen.

So as long as people can feel "safe" while their government bombs the shit out of the rest of the world, exports their jobs to sweatshops, and sells future generations downriver while shredding the Constitution, everything will be OK?

Personally, I couldn't give a shit.

I protest against the war not to gain anyone's "respect", but because the war is WRONG. I am not a political activist to polish a resume for a future run for office, but because I actually BELIEVE in the cause.

This may come as a total shock to you, but I am planning to pull the lever for this douchebag tomorrow. But only because I am a Nader TRADER this time around. Rather than lashing out against everybody who doesn't blindly fall in line and support my preferred candidate, I looked for a way to accomplish BOTH goals--getting that bible-thumping fuckwad out of the White House AND letting the Dems know that I am fed up with their "dog ate my homework" record when it comes to REAL change.

Thanks to the assistance of VotePair.com, a Kerry supporter in Utah will be casting my vote for Ralph Nader tomorrow, while I will be voting for Kerry in his name here in NJ. This way we BOTH get our votes counted, and his actually gets to make a difference for his candidate. And in the process, a dialog gets set up between progressives like myself and voters who support a more mainstream candidate.

A shitload more productive than calling people who think outside the box "traitors", no? With an attitude like that, you can always get a job working for Carl Rove if your boy loses tomorrow.....

 

edited because what i had to say was already covered

 

Ellis, altho I don't agree with you, you have your right to your views as does everyone else, and your opinion..tomorrow hopefully it will all be over with then we can all go debate about something else..now take a deep breathe, and smile

 

I didn't vote for him in the primaries, but I see the logic in standing behind him now that he is the man to get Bush out.
I see him as the typical Democrat really, if it wasn't Bush in office I would vote for Cobb. Bush is just too extreme and dangerous to allow 4 more yrs. in office.

I didn't see it, but I'm sure I would've had a good laugh. I prefer to judge Kerry after his 4 yrs. in office.

Hopefully next election will be a different story. Or hopefully Kerry will be so good that people won't want to vote him out. Whatever the case, I agree that 3rd parties should become more prominent, and I'll do what I can to help out because I do feel that way.

We'll have to wait and see, but hope you're wrong. His wife is pretty pro-environment so I hope she'll have an impact and seeing how outspoken she is, I think she will be influential. They met each other at an environmental conference in Rio, little things like that give me hope.

??I don't think that at all.....I was saying many other people do and that's why Kerry was forced to talk tough on terror. I think it is mostly just talk though. Most other Kerry supporters do too. I think once he's in office, people will not be as fearful because they won't have the Bush administration instilling them with fear constantly. I guessing this anyways.

It sounds as though you think Kerry protested the war only for political gain, well I disagree. Why would he voluntarily serve his country in war and then protest that very war unless he really believed it was wrong?

It's not a total shock so much as relief....and not because you're voting for Kerry, but it just makes me feel more sane. I'm in a battleground state, I went to the website you refer to when it was posted by someone earlier. It said my vote was a strategic vote obviously, so I couldn't participate, but I support the cause wholeheartedly. I think it is a great idea, we need more of this.

It's an excellent strategy, I hope it becomes widespread. I would be voting 3rd party if it wasn't for the failure we now have in office. I think if we let Bush stay in office, it's like saying- "we like what you've done", just excusing his war mongering, environmental destruction, and favoring the wealthy, etc. I'm much more fearful of that than saying to Kerry "you're an acceptable Democratic candidate".

aaaaaahhh, that's not what I meant by that at all! I wasn't calling Nader supporters traitors! I was saying that I'm not a traitor, someone who voted Nader last time, but now endorses Kerry. I just made that up, I don't know if people call them Nader traitors, but whatever, you misunderstood. I've never had a problem with Nader voters, I only disagree with them when they suggest that Bush and Kerry are the same, which I don't think so at all.

 

Again, political expediency, or playing both sides of the fence, in an effort to please EVERYBODY. This way, the doves can claim him as a anti-war activist, and the hawks can look at him as a "war hero". The same driving force that made him "vote FOR the $87B before he voted AGAINST it". The same thing that makes him "support gay rights" but oppose equal marriage rights. The same thing that makes him claim to be "pro-choice", but claim that he would elect anti-choice judges to the SCOTUS in order to "preserve balance".

In short, because he is a POLITICIAN.

 

Political expediency?!?

There in the steamy jungle rivers of Vietnam a young man comes face to face with the psychotic delusions and denials of his own Gothic Puritan Heritage.

What does he do?

Does he act according to the demands of his heritage and deny the reality that he faces.

Or does he tear down the facade of his Ivy League education and his youthful life of privilage.

This young man chose to look the truth in the face, and came home and shared that truth with the masses of denying disbelievers.

The coming of age of every young man brings him to that point in the road where he must chose the path of conformity or the path of honesty.

To dismiss a young man's difficult choice towards honesty as mere political expediency, is to cynically dismiss the difficult coming of age of every young man.

 

I might tend to believe the "life-changing conversion" story if, after experiencing the horrors of the Vietnam war and the demonization of those who opposed it, Kerry went on to a career dedicated to fighting against militarism and the ignorant nationalism that breeds it. But he didn't. He has supported the use of US military force MANY times, against such serious threats as Grenada and Panama, killing untold numbers of innocent civilians in the process.

His "path of honesty" got kinda sidetracked when it came down to getting elected...

 

Most youthful idealistic paths do get kinda sidetracked as one falls into the funeral march of adulthood within any perverted hierarchy.

But that transitoriness simply makes our youthful coming of age stories all the more precious; possessing a meaning beyond mere political interpretations.

And if this Youth achieved nothing else, beyond waking us up to the tragedies of Vietnam, then, under the limitations of our cultural mindset, he achieved more than I have a right to expect

Does THAT make him my choice for President?
No, but THAT certainly wouldn't diminish him as my choice for President.

I guess that was my point.
What ever he has done since, I will always respect what he did then.