Anyone else getting tired of "managed democracy"?

[whatchamacallit]

I swear if I have to hear any more "good" reasons why we can't do the right thing, I'm gonna lose it. Where is our voice? Sure, we have the freedom to vote; every 4 years we get to choose a new leader to ignore us. I'm sick of this "father knows best" bullshit. As always money and power talk, and the rest of us can take a walk.

[glowing]

1. Yes indeed.. the support is wide among the proles

for healthcare, for more help with the economy with regular folk and less for the banks, and even for marijuana to be legal and taxed... seriously, who the fuck do they think they all are?

[SIMPLYB1980]

2. Different people have different ideas of what the "right thing is".

That's why we debate in a Democracy. Or you could just be dictator and tell us all what the "right thing" is to do.

[omega minimo]

4. or you could accept being lied to by government for decades and when you wake up it's too damn late

:evilfrown:

[atreides1]

7. So is torture the right thing?

Or is keeping evidence of said torture under wraps the right thing? What about torture that leads to the death of a detainee, is that the right thing?

The intentional rape of women and children and the refusal to prosecute anyone for those crimes, is that the right thing?

Why don't you tell us what you feel is the right thing? Since you insist that people have different ideas of what the "right thing" is.

I don't know about you, but to me torture is never the right thing.

[nichomachus]

3. Small correction

Every four years, we get to choose from among two candidates the corporations have pre-approved for our selection.

If a candidate in any way threaten the corporations, he/she will be nowhere near the ballot on election day. And may be destroyed in the process.

[whatchamacallit]

5. I believe that more every day... (n/t)

[nichomachus]

6. Can you say

Eliot Spitzer? How about John Edwards? Yeah, they both fooled around -- along with just about every fucker in the GOP. But the pro-corporate adulterers are still in power. Strange that the only ones whose political careers went into the tank within hours were Democrats who stood up to corporate greed.

[foo_bar]

9. I sorta doubt Edwards was a threat to the powers that are

Among the 100 or so invitees to the annual Bilderberg conference under way Sunday in a northern Italy resort is potential U.S. vice president John Edwards.

Reporters generally are not invited and those who are observe the conference group's general pledge of secrecy, reinforcing the view of conspiracy theorists that the elite gathering is up to no good, London's The Guardian newspaper reported.

Sen. Edwards is regarded in Democratic circles as a good performer in his battle with Sen. John Kerry for the nomination to be presidential candidate and so is expected to be a finalist when Kerry chooses a running mate.

Other invitees are Mrs. Bill Gates and likely are regulars Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and U.S. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2004/060704edwardsatbilderberg.htm

[Hannah Bell]

11. see if he's invited this year.

[foo_bar]

12. I'm echoing post #3 re: pre-vetting

Edwards won't be invited to judge a dog show now, but my point (if one exists) is that the permanent government*, as Lewis Lapham calls it, couldn't have been terribly threatened by the campaign rhetoric of a Senator who wasn't exactly known as a progressive in office, nor a man of his word.

“Now,” Kucinich continued, “we have a candidate who voted for the war and voted to fund the war, but says he against it. He voted for the Patriot Act, and now he complains about its abuses. He voted for China Trade in 2000 knowing that Americans would be hurt, and now he’s decrying the unsafe products pouring into this nation from China. He supported nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, now he’s against it.”“Will the real John Edwards please stand up?” Kucinich said.

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2416

*

We use the term "permanent government" as it was
described by Lewis Lapham, editor of HARPER'S MAGAZINE:

"The permanent government, a secular oligarchy... comprises the
Fortune 500 companies and their attendant lobbyists, the big
media and entertainment syndicates, the civil and military
services, the larger research universities and law firms. It is
this government that hires the country's politicians and sets the
terms and conditions under which the country's citizens can
exercise their right --God-given but increasingly expensive --to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Obedient to the rule
of men, not laws, the permanent government oversees the
production of wealth, builds cities, manufactures goods, raises
capital, fixes prices, shapes the landscape, and reserves the
right to assume debt, poison rivers, cheat the customers, receive
the gifts of federal subsidy, and speak to the American people in
the language of low motive and base emotion."<1>

http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/envis/doc98html/miscrwwe99626.html

[Hannah Bell]

13. i agree, pre-vetting. but i also think the exposure of his affair is political,

ie he pissed someone off somewhere.

[foo_bar]

14. would "pissed off" apply to a rival campaign?

Edwards wasn't in a position of power at the time, so I have trouble believing the powers-that-be had anything to gain from keeping one of their own out of politics (or they could've leaked it a year sooner, before his not-so-radical ideas hit the airwaves); the fact that Edwards mouthed some bourgeois platitudes doesn't seem to justify the belief that he P.O.'d The Man, in my opinion and evidently Kucinich's (although he might have been biased):

“John Kerry was hammered by the Republicans and by many in the media for changing his positions on the war and other issues in the 2004 campaign,” Kucinich noted. “The fact of the matter is that he wanted to come out against the war in 2004, and John Edwards argued against it.”

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/kucinich-edwards%E2%80%99-pro-war-posture-in-%E2%80%9904-raises-serious-credibility-questions/

The fifteen percent threshold rule in the Iowa caucus makes being the second choice of the supporters of other candidates an important factor in determining the ultimate winner. In 2004 Kucinich threw his support to John Edwards helping him come in second place, but it now looks like he won’t make that mistake again. I always found that decision strange considering that both Dean and Kerry were far closer to Kucinich’s position on the war and civil liberties issues than Edwards was. It took an article in The New York Times which did make some errors to finally convince Kucinich he was wrong.

The article alleges that ““Mr. Kerry had increasing doubts about the war. But Mr. Edwards argued that they should not renounce their votes — they had to show conviction and consistency.” This is not entirely correct as Kerry had made it clear at the time of his vote for the IWR that he would only support going to war if we were proven to be threatened by WMD. When Bush failed to prove this, Kerry opposed going to war before the war started, even calling for regime change in Washington in protest. Kerry often repeated the slogan “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time” during the campaign.

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2416

An angry Dennis Kucinich lashed out at John Edwards on Friday, saying his Democratic rival showed “a consistent lack of integrity” by suggesting fewer candidates should participate in presidential forums and then trying to explain his remark to reporters. “This is a serious matter and I’m calling him on it,” Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in a telephone interview Friday. “Whispering, trying to rig an election, then denying what’s going on and making excuses. It all reflects a consistent lack of integrity.”

Kucinich’s comments came after Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton were overheard Thursday discussing the possibility of limiting the number of participants in future presidential forums. In an exchange captured on camera and open microphone by broadcasters after an NAACP forum in Detroit, Edwards approached Clinton onstage and whispered in her ear. “We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group,” Edwards said, and Clinton agreed. “Our guys should talk,” Clinton said, complaining the format had “trivialized” the discussion.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/kucinich_accuses_edwards_of_trying_to_rig_election/

[Hannah Bell]

15. mouthed some bourgeois platitudes - i don't think it would be that.

[foo_bar]

16. "bourgeois" in the sense your avatar described

2: conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class; "a bourgeois mentality" (WordNet 2.0 http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict)

On day seven of the Main Street Express bus tour, Senator John Edwards delivered a major speech on his bold vision to lift up middle-class families and make sure that all Americans have a fair shot at the American Dream. At this critical time in our nation's history, with the economic divide wider now than at any other time in the last thirty years, Edwards unveiled his Middle Class Rising agenda that will help build One America where the middle class prospers and all hardworking Americans can find good jobs, save for the future, and have guaranteed health care and retirement security.

http://johnedwards.com/news/headlines/20071216-lifting-the-middle-class/

I distinguish the vacant promises, far from the stuff of Marxist firebrand, from his actions which were decidedly center-right in the vicinity of power (e.g., co-sponsoring the IWR, waxing on the sanctity of marriage, generally doing and legislating the exact opposite of what he preached (as Kucinich rightly pointed out, he wasn't exactly a "defender of the little guy" as it were)). I don't see any percentage in vesting Edwards' former career with the myth of martyrdom, not as he was (allegedly) paying hush money to keep his watered down message viable in spite of his hypocrisy and taste for a very expensive brand of materialism, not to mention his reciprocated embrace of the establishment, and the seeming fact that this news emerged when he was already finished as a candidate:

But in actuality, it's been difficult throughout this primary to point to any particular demographic that has glommed on to Edwards' message. Indeed, his support has often come from unexpected places. In Iowa, the first and last state where Edwards made a real play to win, his supporters skewed upper-income and were more likely to call themselves "conservative" than were supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Although he consistently spoke about the importance of organized labor, Edwards came in third place among union members, despite the United Steelworkers and SEIU endorsing him in the state. (The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees endorsed Clinton and advertised on her behalf in Iowa.) And he performed better in suburban areas than in rural ones.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=whither_edwards_supporters

[FiveGoodMen]

8. You're right.

Sadly.

[Dragonfli]

10. I grew tired of it in the 90s.

I would like a representative democracy please.