20 Comments so far

1. NotOneMore.US February 20th, 2007 7:22 pm

   Maybe people are being kind to Hillary because they think that she is a nice person and would never intentionally wage an unjust and illegal war.

   In fact the opposite may be true. Hillary is not a nice person because in spite of all the evidence, she can’t admit she is wrong. And maybe even believes that the war is the right choice. It was for Bill Clinton when he was bombing the country during his presidency and withheld aid. Maybe people like that really don’t think that this war is wrong. Maybe they really believe the the economic (profit) card is the most important card to play regardless as to who it hurts and kills.

   Maybe Hillary really believes in having war for economic gain (for the rich few, which probably doesn’t include you) and that it is okay to lie to the American people to justify violence and oppression, and conveniently mislabel it as a ‘war on terror’. She fails again to be a leader.

   Hillary will never get my vote, no matter who the other choice is. But I will vote. Because there are other choices other than democrat or republic.

   As Eugene Debs said, I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don’t want and get it.

   Vote for peace and justice - http://www.NotOneMore.US

2. Lenny at NoMcW.com February 20th, 2007 7:59 pm

   I like Hillary’s position on this. If she says her vote was a mistake, it will be seized upon by the right as a flip-flop, and they won’t stop hammering on it all the way thru ‘08. She’s called the war a mistake, and called for withdrawal. We don’t need to be looking backwards and mincing words. The reality is that the only way this war will end is if their is unity on the Dem front. Only that will scare those in power into withdrawal, fearing another crushing defeat in ‘08.

   Look ahead, not behind!

   http://johnwmcbush.com/

3. expatincebu February 20th, 2007 8:09 pm

   “the only way this war will end is if their is unity on the Dem front.”

   Yeah, we heard that in 04. get behind the DLC candidate Kerry even though he did NOT reflect views of the majority of Democrats, even though he was just another corporate butt kissing republican lite candidate. So here we go again, vote for Hillary because she is the less offensive candidate.

   Well I say NO! I want a Democrat candidate. I want a progressive candidate who is a true Democrat. If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination not only will I not vote for her but I will cast my vote for the Republican, no matter how vile. If she is the best Democrats can come up with then my party is worse than the Republicans.

   Actually, I came to that conclusion last year, one of the main reasons I left the country. But I still have hope so PLEASE Democrats, nominate a Democrat, not another DLC corporate shillster.

4. SouthernYankee February 20th, 2007 8:28 pm

   I will not support anyone who was dumb enough not to do their homework, and gave Bush permission for this atrocity. I want a very smart person, with integrity and knowledge of world history to be my president. I do not care what gender or sexual orientation - or where their hometown is. If I, an average citizen, knew it (Bush election and his war) was a mistake and stated as much to everyone, how could Hillary, Edwards, and the rest of them be so gullible and blind?

5. RichM February 20th, 2007 9:05 pm

   I’m disappointed to see so many of you saying you want a candidate who’s “true Democrat.” Do you guys still not understand what the function of the Dem Party is? It’s to sucker in the 50% of the population that cares about “the little guy”, opposes unjust war, is not a bigot & so on — and to betray them. That’s what a “true Democrat” is. The party’s function is to give the population’s liberal-leaning half systematically weak & treacherous representation.

   This is no accident. The D’s & R’s make sure there can only be 2 parties. They know the interests of large corporations & those of ordinary citizens conflict with one another. So they offer you one party that obviously represents the big guys, & another that supposedly represents you. Except that last one, the D’s, needs to have financial backing from the same big guys from Wall St & the defense industries, who also fund the R’s. Get it? It’s a setup, so that no matter who wins an election, the same corporate interests win.

   Hillary is one of the most vile & utterly unprincipled candidates imaginable. Morally she’s no better than Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, or any of the other monsters. McCain is no better, even though his personality seems nicer on TV. If you are very worried about what Bush has done to the country — and you should be — and you plan on supporting Hillary, or any of these corporate pr*stitutes, you haven’t given the matter enough serious thought.

   Did any of you see Hillary screeching her big sound byte at the big Dem pow-wow last week, “…And if I am elected president, the First Thing I will do is STOP THIS WAR!!”? The mind simply boggles at her chutzpah. She’s done everything possible for the last 5 years to facilitate the war, to avoid challenges to it, to ensure its continued funding. And suddenly she’s on TV pretending to be the people’s champion “against the war.” She should have been arrested for this deliberate & grotesque abuse of the public’s trust.

6. pamela February 20th, 2007 11:27 pm

   In typical fashion, Hillary has only come out against the war now that it seems safe and popular. I voted for her once, but have not, nor will I vote for her again. I felt betrayed when she voted for the war resolution. Here is an excerpt from the speech she made on the senate floor, that fateful night of October 10, 2002:

   “And perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation.”

   I do not want my congressional representatives to vote from the perspective of the White House. They are supposed to represent the views of their constituents. As she is admittedly so White-House-Identified, I felt she could not carry out her congressional role effectively. By abdicating her congressional authority to declare war, and then failing to perceive this as a mistake, she exhibits a disregard for the separation of powers and The Constitution.

   We already have a president who cannot admit he made a mistake. We need another one like we need a hole in the head. Yes, there are, and there will be, others.

7. tlr February 21st, 2007 12:03 am

   I will vote for Hillary because she wants a universal health care plan, a more progressive tax system, to role back the bush tax give-away to the ultra rich, reinstating the inheritance and capital gains taxes, and to get corporate taxes back to the mandated 35 percent for ALL corporations. She would not have us attack another country unprovoked. She would not squander hundreds of billions of dollars to destroy another culture in order to keep us dependent on an oil economy.
   She is a progressive. She would strive to increase our investments in alternative energy technology. She would use rational thought to protect our very successful social security system from the republic party wolves. She recognizes that free market economics and socialism are both viable elements of a successful economy.
   You guys can quibble about a candidate’s personality flaws all day long. Until you recognize that issues are what’s important, you’re just farting in the wind.

8. RichM February 21st, 2007 12:51 am

   Note to tlr — you write “She would not have us attack another country unprovoked.”

   Her husband attacked Yugoslavia unprovoked in 1999. Did Yugoslavia pose a serious threat to the US (or to its proxy NATO)? // Her husband has not said a single critical word against Bush’s invasion of Iraq — nor had Hillary, until a week ago when she suddenly kicked off her campaign, & out of the blue, started pretending she was “against the war.”

   Hillary is not a “progessive.” She just plays one on TV. // Re: your claims that she is going to roll back the Bush tax cuts & start taxing the corporations — this is (to put it politely) most unlikely. If she seriously intended anything of the sort, Wall Street’s power elite wouldn’t be backing her — yet for some strange reason, they do.

9. walt February 21st, 2007 8:58 am

   So let me see if I got this right.

   expatincebu says:
   “If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination not only will I not vote for her but I will cast my vote for the Republican, no matter how vile.”

   What a strategy. So this is about you huh? Not about health care, social security, future security, corporate thievery – indeed all the things tlr rightly points out in his/her comment.

   Maybe what will kill the democratic prospects (yet again) is this kind of vanity — people putting their own ideological interests above those of the nation (Haven’t we had 7 years of that?)

   BTW: One of the reasons Hillary is a front runner is that she tracks popularly in polls with a large number of Americans - kind of makes her a natural in a democracy doesn’t it? Or are all those Americans stupid and beneath you, expatincebu? Is that one of the other reasons you “left the country”?

10. walt February 21st, 2007 10:00 am

    PS To John Nichols.
    One principle difference between the positions of Hillary Clinton and those of Edwards and Obama is that she IS the front-runner and as such, has a lot more to lose by alienating independents and undecided voters and finally even Republicans (!) - more of whom would support her than we might think. Bush/Cheney nauseates them. The goal her is reversing the neo-con con job, not installing our ideological preferences to replace theirs. It’s called democracy … for ALL the people.

11. writer2 February 21st, 2007 10:17 am

    i think hillary c. is very beholden to aipac and aipac is prowar. her beholdenness to aipac is the more fundamental problem for her. she has to toe the aipac line and yet can;t afford to be as prowar as she started being bec the mood of the voters has changed.
    it is quite a dilemma.

    it will be interesting to see how she embraces yet distances herself from the coming attack on iran.

12. Lwayno February 21st, 2007 10:19 am

    P S to John Nicols: Who else, besides Chimp Bush and F-You Cheney, refuses to admit they made a mistake? Why none other than Hillary R Clinton! Vote for General Clark! Lwayno, disabled vet

13. Shane February 21st, 2007 1:20 pm

    pro-Clintonites,
    Please read the CommonDreams article by Anne Miller at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0214-28.htm
    Here, Sen. Clinton answered a direct question on the use of nuclear weapons against Iran with “no options are off the table”.
    I can never support a candidate who believes that the use of nuclear weapons can ever be an option.
    She is very dangerous.

14. nicoleg February 21st, 2007 1:42 pm

    Although I would not consider myself a Clinton backer, being that I am an Illinois resident I would like to draw attention to the fact that Obama was not even a Senator at the time when the Senate voted to approve the Iraq War in 2003! Obama has been a Senator for under 3 years, can you really have confidence that he will be able to run the country with that amount of experience?

15. Jaded Prole February 21st, 2007 3:07 pm

    Hillary Clinton is the worst kind of candidate. She is a cynical opportunist with nothing substantive to offer. She, like her husband, represent the republocrat DLC. She is the kind of candidate that will make many Ralph and getting her elected would take an even greater electoral fraud than the last two selections.

16. NotOneMore.US February 21st, 2007 3:12 pm

    There other choices besides a Bushie and a Hillary type candidate.

    Imagine if all those people who supported Nader in 2000 actually voted for him instead of Al Gore, what would the Democratic Party do (Nader would have gotten at least 10-20% of the vote)?

    But the voters caved in. And we are seeing it again, the democratic party leadership wants us voting for them out of fear. I refuse to.

    My candidate must have already known that the war is based on lies and deceit, and must already have publicly stated it two years ago, and not waited until it was ‘convenient’.

    What is sad is this, our economy is based on over-consumption of natural resources, and having a war driven economy. Do you ever wonder how many of those bullets and bombs that kill US troops are made by a American corporation?

    And figure this out, of the billions of dollars going to the war, how much of that is going to our soldiers? Very little. This war is not about the soldiers, not about terrorism, and not about Saddam. This war is about maintaining the greed driven money machine that most of us participate in, but very few of us benefit from (unless you are a millionaire).

    The only true antiwar candidate will state the following, The war is a mistake, and we should allow the Iraqi people to determine what they want to do with their oil. Otherwise it is just a continuation of the colonialism that has existed for thousands of years.

    It is going to be very tough to get this massive all-consuming machine to change direction, and that is why we must start sooner rather than later (if it is not too late already).

    Peace and justice, and human rights for all.

17. FULLUVIT February 21st, 2007 9:37 pm

    You can see some of the problems we face right here in this article. The mainstream media has already narrowed the Democratic field down to three candidates (Clinton, Obama and Edwards), even though there are still 21 months until the election. Sadly, the so-called independent media (in this case, The Nation) has followed suit.

    Are they saying that Edwards is more serious of a candidate than Dennis Kucinich is? Kucinich is the only one that stayed in the race until the last primary in ‘04, trying to get some truly progressive ideas worked into the Democratic platform. He has the voting record that showed he opposed the war vehemently from the start and never backed down. He doesn’t have to apologize for anything like Clinton does. But can he get any press? Not in this country.

18. Shane February 22nd, 2007 6:33 am

    Y’all forget Bill Richardson, Gov. of NM. Anti-war, anti-nuje, pro-diplomacy, pro-environment. He is a true international statesman.

19. walt February 23rd, 2007 4:43 am

    OK can I say something really unpopular? Iraq was not a mistake. We need to clarify that. Voting for it and supporting it were big mistakes, but only in 20/20 hindsight.

    Iraq was not a mistake … it was a lie. It was a deliberate propaganda campaign to (1) avenge Bush Sr. (2) Steal the oil (3) bring on the Rapture — who knows? At this point it no longer matters. None of it worked. So maybe the Republicans can say it was a mistake, because none of the those “objectives” were met. But I won’t say it. And we shouldn’t.

    I did not support the invasion, but I had a cold chill run up my spine at every demonstration at the thought that I might be wrong. That Saddam might have WMDs. That he might have been a strange bedfellow to bin Laden. I did not know at the time that this was cooked intelligence. So I was the one. It was Me. Unlike all you other geniuses, I believed the President (even though I hated him) and Colin Powell and the government. At the time I had no reason to doubt any of it. I simply believed, like most thoughtful people that diplomacy and sanctions and the UN needed to be fully applied BEFORE resorting to the ultimate and unacceptable option of war.

    But I didn’t know what you geniuses knew. I couldn’t find a credible candidate like NotOneMore wants when he/she states: “My candidate must have already known that the war is based on lies and deceit, and must already have publicly stated it two years ago …” Good luck with that. “Draft Nostradomus”.

    Geniuses? Or armchair quarterbacks? Please. Kucinich was (and is) a fringe candidate with nothing to lose by maintaining an unpopular position. Nader was (and is) a vile narcissist who leads a cult that believes it is ” the vanguard party”. He even calls himself elite - and without a trace of irony. Obama was (as nıcoleg points out) not even a senator at the time of the Iraq vote … and the list goes on.

    So you guys got it right. We’re all stupid. We didn’t see what you see. Neither did our politicians. (Read David Brooks’ recent NYT piece on Hillary - “No Apologies Needed” In it you’ll see she had it as right as a normal person might expect).

    But you guys know better. Let’s have YOU pick the next President since you’re so smart. Popular front runners are too much the choice of we lumpens, huddled in the vacuous suburbs, or closing factories, or imperiled subsidized housing, or lengthening unemployment lines, or soon not to be free health clinics, or … wherever we dopes congregate.

    Please tell us what to do … and who to elect and PLEASE piss away the lead of a viable, hard as nails, ass-kicking front runner (aka popular) like Clinton, who strikes terror in the hearts of neo-conservatives and PLEASE get behind YET ANOTHER unelectable darling of the “progressive” left who won’t win but who at least will inspire David Geffen and all the rest of you tenured a**holes and once again abandon the traditional democratic responsibilities (working people, minorities, the poor) for the limousine liberals (oops I’m sorry they all are chauffeured in Toyota Prius’ now aren’t they?).

    It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

20. bnkohyturari December 12th, 2007 8:56 am

    titsywupunehe…

    exvovakizezy…

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