retired_mrsjb

Not so much an x-factor as a wtf?-factor for me.
I'm not sure what Nader is expecting to gain.

He is far closer politically to the democrats than the republicans, which means he syphons off more democrat votes. He might make a small statement, but ultimately in 2000, all he succeeded in doing was assisting the candiate with the views furthest from his to get into the White House (I eschew the phrase "get elected" because Bush didn't). I'm not sure what good that does Nader. IMHO things would have been closer to Nader's ideals had Gore got in/if Kerry gets in, so why open the door for the evil empire?

retired_sargent

I think all you Yanks should be voting for the Personal Choice Party cadidates, their VP Nominee looks OK. She is an ex film star (of a certain kind) and aging.

Oh and aren't Brodys just too "last year".

retired_lapepe

Nader is by far the best candidate, which is why the dems refused to let him get in the "debates" etc. Kerry is no way near the left, he is a Bush ligth. His policies will be less bad (better isn't quite the right word) for the poors and for the middle class, than Bush'. And he's not as fanatic about religion.

I'm not an american so I can't vote in the election, but I have suggested - as many others, such as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore - to vote for Nader in "decided" states, and Kerry in "swing-states".

One shouldn't have the illusion that Kerry will turn the American policy around, work for the poor, for real democracy, protecting human rights, working for peace in the Middle East, cause he will not. Nothing he has said supports it, the "debates" certainly did not.

I've now heard rumours that bin Laden is in the NW of China, and that the US and China are negotiating to release him to the US just before the election (Taliban suggested this before the Afganistan war, but the US flatly refused btw). This would no doubt secure four more years for Bush, and the world would be worse off.

Politicians don't change policy for the better, peoples' movements do. Probably the only chance of real change in the world affairs, is a huge grassroots movement so big that politicians finally have to open their ears.

This thread has turned into a OTF thread, but we usually stear offtopic anyway

retired_kswansonwoolf

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pangaea:

Politicians don't change policy for the better, peoples' movements do. Probably the only chance of real change in the world affairs, is a huge grassroots movement so big that politicians finally have to open their ears.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wishful thinking...

retired_pmetzger1

You leftie poofs all need take wake up. Bush will get back in - welcome to the real world.

retired_sargent

Dubya this time, Hilary next time. I think I'll apply for a job as a White House intern then.

Uknowmehfo

Hey... at least that's how it worked here, kostis.

It might not always be like that, but last Catalan and Spanish elections clearly showed that politic parties who have steered towards what the society wants, or in the Catalan-Spanish particular case didn't want(specially in international politics and pre-emptive wars) clearly have improved their results...

I know people not living here still think it was the terrorist strike that changed the situation, but that wasn't what really happened during those frantic 4 days... it was more a situation in which the young, undecided, usually non-voting people decided Zapatero was the less bad candidate.

Hopefully USofA's and Poofland's general elections will also bring the same outcome...

:thdwn: with the Trio of the Azores!!!

retired_kswansonwoolf

A lot of what under the bridge since then though.

Things are different in the US IMO. They're too young a nation and they haven't ever had a dictator (not since they kicked the English out anyway). People change, grow up and their views become more realistic when people like Franco, or Salazar or Papadopoulos are in charge.

retired_sara maria

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pangaea:
I'm not an american so I can't vote in the election, but I have suggested - as many others, such as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore - to vote for Nader in "decided" states, and Kerry in "swing-states".
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Michael Moore has begged Ralph Nader not to run for president in numerous media outlets.

Uknowmehfo

But the vast majority of the people who decided that election were U30, and unlessyou count Assnar's regime as a dictatorship (and bloody close to that it felt) they didn't know what's to be under a restrictive dictatorial regime...

What's even more worrying is that in some polls conducted before the elections, the vast majority of those U30 didn't get a simple historical fact about Franco's regime right (apart from the dictator's name) and we're talking about a thing that hapenned 30 years ago...

/me thinks the collective historical memory of his generation is really fooked