US Republican Race

[bryce]

Not sure if there is a thread on this buried away somewhere, but has anyone else been following this closely? It would be so entertaining if it were not so worrying. One of these people may well be leading the free world two years from now.

Will Romney eventually take the nomination? Or will Gingrich keep up the momentum? Or will one of the less prominent candidates take over? It seems that each 'clear frontrunner' stays in that position for about two weeks or so before someone else takes over. I can't imagine the kind of people we may have as Vice-Presidential candidates, given that someone as seemingly level-headed as John McCain went with Palin. If Romney gets the nomination we may see someone similar in order to appeal to the right wing base of the party who seem to loathe Romney.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

Agree, it's good comedy for us but must be worrying for people in the USA.

From what I read there is no clear favorite at the moment. Each month there is a new virtual leader. But yea, Romney would be a decent bet at this stage, he is the only one yet to screw up. However, being a Mormon it appears he has bit of a handicap in the nomination race.

Anyway, it is an interesting topic. Good idea for a thread. Anyone seen Rick Perry's latest advert? It is fast becoming the most disliked video on youtube!

[video=youtube;0PAJNntoRgA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA[/video]

 

[bryce]

t's good comedy for us but must be worrying for people in the USA

Worrying for us too. What the U.S. does affects everyone.

 

[Lior]

I think Obama has been a lousy president, a very lousy president indeed. He had two years to reform high earners tax rates, and eliminate the subsidies. Lets not forget the stimulus packages which just aren't working, and how much debt he is raking up.

The problem for the Republicans is they lack a credible alternative. Mitt Romney who could win and is pretty rational however he has a lot of baggage. Bachman is a crazy religious right zealot, Gringich has too many personal problems to deal with. They have Jon Huntsman who seems to be the voice of reason. His tax plan is very attractive, and eliminates all of the subsidies. However he is not going to win. No where close to winning either.

What America really needs is how to deal with Asia's rise, but they also need a political leader like David Cameron of the UK. Someone who has a plan to cut spending dramatically and sort out the deficit now and not later.

US are fucked with their shitty little political system, and having a culture of banks which are too big to fail.

 

[waratahjesus]

Has Obama really had a chance? He inherited wars, gt hit with the GFC then lost power in the senate. Not sure you could really judge him as anything.

 

[DPK]

US are fucked with their shitty little political system, and having a culture of banks which are too big to fail.

Wow. That's a very myopic, exaggerated statement.

Has Obama really had a chance? He inherited wars, gt hit with the GFC then lost power in the senate. Not sure you could really judge him as anything.

I think Obama has some things to run with, just hasn't really got started. Got some of his healthcare initiatives through, beat don't ask don't tell, got Osama (this is still a big fish), and we'll see a lot of "It could have been worse!" with regards to the financial crisis.

 

[Lior]

Wow. That's a very myopic, exaggerated statement.

No its not. I'm not criticising Obama here. I'm criticising the absence of a coherent plan to take Washington forward because of their broken political system. They have a system where it is so ideological where Republican's are refusing to budge on raising tax and because of so many sectional interests. In fact it got so bad that they almost defaulted, and the sad thing is, had they not raised the debt ceiling like all the Republican nominees were advocating (with the exception of 1) then the US system would have collapsed. They have this whole mantra of anti-government yet everyone supported a government blank cheque to bail out the financial system. My view of this, is the same as what the UK did, and what NZ is doing with their insurance agency, and that is if tax payers have to use their funds to bail a financial system out, then they should own it for the time being, when they have the ability to sell it. The fact that US Republican's have called the idea "communist" is a little bit concerning.

I don't criticise Obama's social policy, I think he has done away with a lot of initiatives which are important and fundamental to the US social fabric. I loved Obama's approach to healthcare, something Clinton couldn't even do.

Sure I could have amended that glib statement to be a little more meaningful. However it is my contention, that the US political system is indeed broke and that is no exaggeration. There is just no coherent plan in Washington to create a pro job environment. Sure Greece, Italy and Spain have bigger problems, but the USA have substantial ones as well.

 

[Karl]

I think that with Washington and Wall Street so hijacked by nepotism, lobbyists, special interest groups, arrogance and outright corruption and a system of selecting political leaders that seems like a cross between MTV and Survivor you just wonder how the USA is ever going to be able to fix the issues and implement the policies that are needed to address serious systemic problems they have.

 

[Cutter]

I think Obama has been a lousy president, a very lousy president indeed.

I reckon Obama forgot to read the caveat emptor wording on the White House title deeds. He was sold a lemon big time.

 

[Ruggo]

Has Obama really had a chance? He inherited wars, gt hit with the GFC then lost power in the senate. Not sure you could really judge him as anything.

You have to feel sorry for the bloke. He certainly inherited a big steaming turd.

I don't think the US political system doesn't do his agenda many favours either. Some of the social reform is far to big to be done in a maximum eight year term. I do like the fact the bloke cares about cleaning up his own back yard though.

 

[Karl]

Obama hasn't managed, in less than 4 years, to turn around a massive economy that crashed badly when he got there from pressures pre-dating him and got mired deeply in its own poo, in circumstances where he's been fighting a couple of proper Wars, a GFC, Wall Street and had to battle obstructionist Republicans and a National mindset that resents government, regulation, any type of new law and demands instant gratification and an immediate return to their God given economic prosperity. He has copped an enormous amount of shit though, exposed himself and his family to a lot of personal risk as a symbol of a regime that a large chunk of the world hates passionately and pretty much worked 24/7 for 4 years except for the brief moments the media manage to catch him playing a few holes of Golf. I think its remarkable that he hasn't thrown his hands in the air and told them all to shove it up their collective arses myself.

 

[Scarfman]

He's also fighting Rupert / FOX.

 

[Ali's Choice]

What people need to keep in mind is that during this phase of the electoral cycle, the Republicans are pandering to their base. They aren't trying to appeal to mainstream America, or even centrist America, they are appealing to the Right and Far Right. At the same time trying to raise funds from Conservative aligned lobby groups. Whoever wins the Republican Nomination will immediately become more moderate with the realities of a general election. Gingrich's comments regarding Palestine have received plenty of press in recent days, but the reality is if he were to become President, his policies relating to Israel and Palestine won't differ that much from Obama's, whose policies in this area haven't been drastically different to George W Bush's.

 

[FiveStarStu]

Obama to cruise it in for another four. None of the nominees listed could take him on and win.

Romney's their best chance but his Mormon faith may be an issue, as well as dirt from the Salt Lake City Olympics vote rigging allegations.

Gingrich is a bit like Abbott in that there's a questionable political history, which has led to people doubting his chances. Could be nothing, could be his undoing. I think he'll go until the end, but the nomination is a bridge too far.

 

[bryce]

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/...-of-rick-perrys-strong-ad-20111214-1otz5.html

Some of these are great

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

This is the best one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLQrMqog8Fk

(probs too rude for SMH)

 

[bryce]

The one person that the media don't seem to like talking about is Ron Paul.

He is polling pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised to see him do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. Which will mean that more people might take notice of him. He is an interesting guy. I first heard of him when I watched highlights of one of the Republican debates in 2007/8. He spoke about foreign policy and caused a stir. He still seems like the only sane Republican when it comes to foreign policy. However if you listen to him talk about just about anything else, the guy is pretty radical. I don't know that he could win the nomination, let alone a general election as a Republican, but he may run as a third candidate in the general election. If nothing else, I'll give him credit for having integrity as he is the only person there who is consistent.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

Ron Paul has very good foreign policy from what I've seen, and I think that is the general consensus. He still has his loony-ness though, probably the most "libertarian" out of all of the republican candidates. (they all say they are "small government", but he is the only one that actually means it)

He'd make a great adviser for foreign affairs or something though.

 

[bryce]

He'd make a great adviser for foreign affairs or something though.

I agree, but I can't see that happening. A Republican president wouldn't have it, and neither would a Democrat.

 

[Bowside]

I see ron paul is now the front runner in Iowa. I agree that he is good in patches (foreign policy) but also has some terrible (in my view) ideas.

I've only seen a few videos about him but I worry about his faith in people to be charitable towards others, rather than for the government to provide a safety net.

Guardian Critique of his Ideology:

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Rightwing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers' Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Policy Exchange. Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side, and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms. These freedoms were most clearly defined by Isaiah Berlin in his essay of 1958, Two Concepts of Liberty. It is a work of beauty: reading it is like listening to a gloriously crafted piece of music. I will try not to mangle it too badly.

Put briefly and crudely, negative freedom is the freedom to be or to act without interference from other people. Positive freedom is freedom from inhibition: it's the power gained by transcending social or psychological constraints. Berlin explained how positive freedom had been abused by tyrannies, particularly by the Soviet Union. It portrayed its brutal governance as the empowerment of the people, who could achieve a higher freedom by subordinating themselves to a collective single will.

Rightwing libertarians claim that greens and social justice campaigners are closet communists trying to resurrect Soviet conceptions of positive freedom. In reality, the battle mostly consists of a clash between negative freedoms.

As Berlin noted: "No man's activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'." So, he argued, some people's freedom must sometimes be curtailed "to secure the freedom of others". In other words, your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. The negative freedom not to have our noses punched is the freedom that green and social justice campaigns, exemplified by the Occupy movement, exist to defend.

Berlin also shows that freedom can intrude on other values, such as justice, equality or human happiness. "If the liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of a number of other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust and immoral." It follows that the state should impose legal restraints on freedoms that interfere with other people's freedoms – or on freedoms which conflict with justice and humanity.

These conflicts of negative freedom were summarised in one of the greatest poems of the 19th century, which could be seen as the founding document of British environmentalism. In The Fallen Elm, John Clare describes the felling of the tree he loved, presumably by his landlord, that grew beside his home. "Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways / So thy old shadow must a tyrant be. / Thou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power, / Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free."

The landlord was exercising his freedom to cut the tree down. In doing so, he was intruding on Clare's freedom to delight in the tree, whose existence enhanced his life. The landlord justifies this destruction by characterising the tree as an impediment to freedom – his freedom, which he conflates with the general liberty of humankind. Without the involvement of the state (which today might take the form of a tree preservation order) the powerful man could trample the pleasures of thepowerless man. Clare then compares the felling of the tree with further intrusions on his liberty. "Such was thy ruin, music-making elm; / The right of freedom was to injure thine: / As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm / In freedom's name the little that is mine."

But rightwing libertarians do not recognise this conflict. They speak, like Clare's landlord, as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. They characterise any attempt to restrain them as tyranny. They refuse to see that there is a clash between the freedom of the pike and the freedom of the minnow.

Last week, on an internet radio channel called The Fifth Column, I debated climate change with Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas, one of the rightwing libertarian groups that rose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist party. Fox is a feared interrogator on the BBC show The Moral Maze. Yet when I asked her a simple question – "do you accept that some people's freedoms intrude upon other people's freedoms?" – I saw an ideology shatter like a windscreen. I used the example of a Romanian lead-smelting plant I had visited in 2000, whose freedom to pollute is shortening the lives of its neighbours. Surely the plant should be regulated in order to enhance the negative freedoms – freedom from pollution, freedom from poisoning – of its neighbours? She tried several times to answer it, but nothing coherent emerged which would not send her crashing through the mirror of her philosophy.

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people. This bastardised, one-eyed philosophy is a con trick, whose promoters attempt to wrongfoot justice by pitching it against liberty. By this means they have turned "freedom" into an instrument of oppression.

A fully referenced version of this article can be found atwww.monbiot.com



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...dised-libertarianism-makes-freedom-oppression