The Dem You Tube Debate
 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Hobobob10

They are kinda' long, so here is the link.

In the 8th video Gravel defends the "died in vain" comment.
I agree. Soldiers died in vein in Nam and they are dying in vain in Iraq.

I tried 3 times to watch that debate on tv. I think I finally saw it all, albeit it, in pieces. I had high hopes that format, questions from the general public would make for a better debate, but again I was disappointed. Too bad CNN chose the ones to air. The petty catfighting between Clinton and Obama was typical, the same old "ignore the question and say what I want" tactics - spouting rhetoric - bashing the opposition, no real answers or solutions were discussed. None of them seemed like visionaries to me, with any innovative ideas for our country. Lets just tell people what we think they want to hear. They seemed to just try and make themselves, as individuals and democrats, look better by making the republicans look worse. I'm very disappointed and disheartened. I have little hope that the republican debate will be much different.

The Republican debate will be between McCain and Ron Paul. Everyone else is worried about getting questions from snowmen.

These people were annoying and FAKE as hell, except for Gravel. I'm not all there with his policies, but I like his personality and agree with the "follow the money" theory (which is absolutely true).
The Republicans are going to be more fake, corrupt and uptight except for Ron and I don't even know if I'll make it through it.
Honestly, this was a waste of time... most of them were lying their asses off and were barely trying to hide it.

[quote=rkzenrage;369789]These people were annoying and FAKE as hell, except for Gravel. ~~ Honestly, this was a waste of time... most of them were lying their asses off and were barely trying to hide it.[/QUOTE]

Ya know - thats what bothered me the most. I really don't understand how anyone could vote for Clinton. I feel the same way about some of the republicans, but damn she is so full of crap its almost amazing. [flip]I'd like to see another debate, if the war started to turn and we were kickin ass, the Iraqi gov't was taking control... how they all would be right there swearing their support and the "I knew it" and...[flop]

Yeah, looking at her is like looking at a fish.
Also, how many questions did she and Obama actually answer?
Again, I want to sponsor and hold a debate where the candidates HAVE to answer direct questions, questions from the public that they don't get in advance.
I am going to ask the Republicans if they support getting out of Iraq without taking their oil... leaving all of it owned by the Iraqi people.
We chose to invade and occupy them while they posed no threat to us, they owe us NOTHING.

How bout this - a debate with yes/no questions only!

They tried that a few times with the YT debate, you saw how well that worked out.

What the hell is, "supported the troops"? If congress cuts funding for the war, the soldiers won't get paid? The mess Sargent will say sorry guys, congress cut off food so you'll have to eat at Quicky Mart with your credit card? I know the enemy is attacking but we couldn't afford bullets?

Supporting the troops should mean sending care packages and making sure they get the best medical care when wounded. Supporting the troops has become a bullshit term which really means supporting Bush's war.

I support the HELL out of the troops... I want them home and safe after we stabilize Afghanistan, which should have been done already, with proper troop support.

C'mon guys - thats not what I meant - post edited.

No problem, it's a common mistake.

I agree with this.

We made significant progress in Afghanistan but left for the EU for Iraq. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not groups that will supported by the public while the nationalist groups in Iraq are.

If La Clinton is a good match for that husband of hers -- and I've said so more than once -- nobody in this Republic has any business voting for her.

Socialism, selling out, and hostility to the Bill of Rights were the hallmarks of that other Clinton. I'm glad he never sufficiently deceived me to support him.

Supporting the troops means pursuit of victory. Victory is the best support of the troops.

Our enemies' best hope is to outlast us. Why don't we pursue a strategy, an attitude, of outlasting them instead? Let's plan for handing them a hundred fifty years of defeats and denying them area to operate in and scouring, disinfecting, their sanctuary areas? Permit humanity's foes no safety, no surety, no nothing; do it a lot and do it for ever.

There is no substitute for victory, said MacArthur, and the Dems all went and put their fingers in their ears when that was mentioned. That is why I've no time for them any more.

So PATHETIC!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...galvotefor.gif

UG... I would buy that if they could even articulate what "victory" meant, better yet, if President Dufus could spell it.

I'm not seeing that much space between the Clintons and Bush here. They all have problems with the Bill of Rights and oppose free markets. Bush nationalizes education and health care to serve business cronies, while Hillary would do the same to grow the Fed Gov serving her people. If we think about what facism and socialism originally meant in terms of internal public policies these two clowns are both on board.

What is TERRIFYING is that Bush is BETTER on the environment than Bill Clinton was.
You have no idea how much I fucking hate that!!!

Join the zoo
 

Something implied from a Heinlein Sci-Fi story:

We, the general populace do not live in a true democracy!

We all live in a zoo, true we elect our attendants, aka the Congress
who are supposed to take care of us. But they answer to a
higher authority: the unelected Beltway and Wall Street Mob
who provide for their re-election funds and dictate policy.

The US has never been a democracy, who would want that?

I all comes back to the voters... and non-voters.
The politicians that are bought and paid for, are reelected. If they weren't, then the money for ridiculous extended campaigns would taper off. Sure, they could still be bribed for votes on the floor, but at the risk of loosing their jobs.
The politicians have to go along to get along because they can't rely on the voters to back the up if they do the right thing.

Two more have stepped up- Huckabee and Tommy Thompson.

Does anyone here really think ANY republican can win?

Rudy is winning--by talking less about Iraq and Bush.

Clinton and Obama are on the spot, like it or not, because right now the Demos in Congress don't have the votes--or some would say, guts--to get the troops the hell out of Iraq now!

Oh, speaking of campaign finance. What's with Obama wanting to have publicly-funded campaigns?

Candidates shouldn't have to cater to wealthy contributors, or spend ever waking moment fundraising, to the exclusion of all else. Public financing is one possible solution to that. I'm not sure how well it would work, but that's the idea behind it.

I'd be willing to bet that it would take more taxes then people are willing to pay. So, since raising taxes is now political suicide, we'd probably wind up looking at another drain on an already over-extended treasury.

The total spent on the campaign by all candidates and associated groups in 2004 was about $600M, considerably less than a week's worth of Iraq war.

Why bring the Iraq war into this? It was a horrible mistake, but one that we're stuck with until a workable solution can be planned out to get our troops home. So short term after such a bill would be passed is another strain on the treasury, albeit a small one.

Which might mean they'd have to make do with less than $600 Million. No more back-to-back slander ads for six months in swing states. Oh, the horror.

Oh, the sheer level of win that would entail would be AMAZING.

Because that is something we can apparently afford for years at a time on the whim of the current President. Actually picking our next President is much more important, and would cost much less. Especially since, as Clodfobble pointed out, the public financing would likely be at a lower level than the spending has recently risen to.

Why are campaigns so expensive? TV ads that have dubious effect as far as winning over voters.

Arms race. Which might be less of a factor with public financing.

And pretending, rkzen, that you have no idea what victory is -- or that the "they" you so bitterly inveigh against, apparently on the grounds that they are Republicans and you are not (I can find no other motive for your particular grousing), have no idea either is so beyond belief as to venture into the ridiculous. Certainly I ridicule it.

Victory in the Iraqi theater: politically stable, prosperous, democratic Iraq, and I'm willing to be patient to get it. Develop Iraq towards the Barnettian Core, which is in no instance anywhere the work of a moment, but of a decade, minimum -- "the train engine can go no faster than the caboose." Defeat in the Iraqi theater is the loss of all the above. Continuing conflict in the Iraqi theater of war is the dispute over all the above.

It's the same for the Afghan theater of the war.

Victory in Iraq = Partition.

That's pretty much the best we can hope for. Now, how do we maintain the borders that cut through the Kurdish nation?

The Kurds have proven that they can take care of themselves. I say we put an American Brigade on the border with the Turks as a deterent. 60 minutes did a great piece on the Kurdish issue last night.

Yeah - I saw that too - it was very interesting!

Did they say anything new?

So I don't taint the stories - 60 minutes

I am not so sure that what they said was new news, only that the information they put out is NOT what most want to hear. That is that the Kurds have made it work. Until last week, they had not had a single car bomb or human bombing in 2 years. They have snapped their borders tight and the people are very happy, the economy is booming, new buildings are going up everywhere, and peace has broken out. Other than that, not much.

The Kurds may have done that but they are not in the middle of the war. It is much harder if not impossible for the middle of Iraq to become stabilized by themselves because there is so much fighting from each side and there are more than two sides. The more I hear about it the more it looks like it may turn into a chaotic anarchical state like Somalia is today.

And leaving without any of their oil/natural gas in Western hands, of course.
What if they don't want a "democracy", it just never ends?
You forget, my candidate is a republican.

I really doubt Iraqis could get their country back together if they tried, the interests are too conflicting. There is no single direction and if there is a single direction, an outside force will oppose it. If we leave, Iraq is going to become worse than Somalia. Yet, the inevitability of that is enormous.

Then the too oversimplified to actually consider moral issue comes in...
What is worse, shooting someone in the leg or leaving them there to die?

Then you have to consider the hundreds of other issues.

Assuming that everyone's idea about Iraq is coming from 60 minutes or any other network news source, you may be right. But I've had my fill of the lies, bias, and forgeries the liberal media has brainwashed younger people with for years. I get my facts from people actually defending our country in Iraq, not some rich elitist pinheads, reporting what others are reporting from a safe hotel somewhere. They hate Bush, so they sell out our troops to try to get him. The fact about Bush and the war is, like Clinton, he was elected and re-elected, by voters, and journalists hate that.

Can you give your account on what the situation is like in Iraq then?

I try to get my sources from experts on Iraq or from Iraqis themselves and I realize that this only a small part of the whole scenario. My official position on Iraq as of now is that I have no idea what we should do. I support neither party because both parties are making the same mistakes as Bush by basing their decisions on assumptions.

From what I have read from numerous sources is that if we pull out, Iraq will become a chaotic anarchical state much like Somalia. Also, I haven't seen that we have had much progress in Iraq and I have huge doubts on whether that will change.

The thing that scares me is that the people of Iraq do not trust the government and the police and I do not know if this view is isolated or widespread. This is one of the many bits of information I would need before I could even think of making a decision that could even close to coming out successfully.

Here are two articles that I find at least to be mostly unbiased and somewhat accurate. Comments would be great if you have a different perspective.
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle18141.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle18120.htm

One from the comment page on the first link you posted - There are some really good ones.


"Poor guy thinks cave-dwellers & assorted misfits from poor coutries on the opposite side of the globe are the #1 threat to America. Pathetic.

He's also deluded about Iraq: there's a strong coalition of Iraqi nationalists: that's right IRAQI NATIONALISTS desperately trying to form a coalition. The problem? The U.S. is doing everything it can to prevent that, and to demonize IRAQI NATIONALISTS like Sadr, and back the Iranian: that's right IRANIAN proxy parties like SCIRI. Why? I have no idea, they're nuts! Why is a coalition of IRAQI NATIONALISTS trying to come together? It's just like Chris said, they all need water, they all need oil, and they all need to be strong enough to keep Iran and Turkey out.

The Shia's have control of oil and water. The Kurds have some oil, and the Sunnis have some water, but they're all too weak to resist Iran or Turkey. They need eachother. Only SOME Shia don't agree; they'd be quite happy being an Iranian puppet state. THAT is the real civil war: NATIONALIST Shia vs. IRANIAN PUPPET Shia. The former wins, Iraq stays, the latter wins, Hedges is right."

This ones even better:

"Please Read - Missing Link - President will be Impeached

Dear Dana Siegelman:

Please Contact Michael Gavin, FBI Montgomery, The FBI left me a code message on the telephone recorder and I believe the Director is ready to jump ship with Gonzales. Also Jill Simpson- Josh McGowen and Jim Parkman will verify our communications.

I am going to be a witness against Deputy Attorney General Joseph Fitzpatrick for the State of Alabama. We believe he is the person mentioned below.

He and his wife were dinner party guests of Karl and Darby Rove at Rosemary Beach, Florida on or about Saturday March 3, 2007, before your father was sentenced to prison. I had drinks with them before the dinner party at Bud-N-Alleys at Seaside, FL.

Jim Parkman thinks that bigger fish were at the party and has written the House Judiciary Committee about my testimony.

I can verify that I was there and have supporting statements from persons I spoke to about meeting them that night. These persons are also credible and former law enforcement agents. I also have bank credit card slips to prove what time the chance meeting took place.

I have 20+ years of veracity with the Federal Law Enforcement agencies and the FBI.

In 1990-92, I was deep cover into the VANPAC mail bomb investigation for the FBI and I can fully document Mark Fuller's and Gary McAiley's involvement with Bush, Sr. in covering for the Enterprise - formerly dubbed - Iran Contra.

I did not get involved or follow your father's case because of my situation the last year. My mother was brutally murdered by blunt force head trauma in Enterprise, Alabama, last August 2006 and I have been living at a secret location since then.

Please call - Counter Intelligence is at all time high - Your father may not know of my testimony - I have tried to contact Redding Pitt - Milton McGregor's atty's are trying to take control of Jill Simpson and head off her testimony to the House Committee and I believe they will have her killed soon.

John Caylor"

I'm not thinking very much of that source Pierce - not that I know anything about them, but it seems VERY left leaning to me - as well as all the comments at the bottom. *shrug*

Many of the articles from the independent guys in Iraq like Michael Yon are more realistic to me - Hell they may just be cheerleaders for the troops for all I know, but they seem more credible to me.

That site has both left and libertarian articles. The article that xoxoxoBruce posted about Germans supporting Hitler was on there.

The problem I see is that no one has any idea what is actually realistic.

Perhaps what is real and happening in one area is most likely very different than what is happening in another. There are obviously good and bad things happening concurrently. The question is whether there is more positive or negative - to that we ae almost forced to rely on the reporting of others. Their biases, real or imagined skew their views and thus their reports. Additionally, the readers inherent biases also skew what is taken out of those reports.

As i was reading the first link, I was thinking it sounded suspiciously like the CBS evening news. When I read the stringer, I realized I should have recognized the New York Times propaganda footprint. My understanding, from military sources, is that the surge is working, and if successful, we can push these terrorist bombers out of their hiding places and back to Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia where they came from, finally leaving the Iraqis to be able to mend fences, or, fight each other, instead of imported insurgents. I don't think the Iraqis will ever have a democracy like we in the west enjoy, because their culture doesn't allow it. Israel is the only thing close to a democracy in the region.
As far as the link from the dentist in Iraq, I don't know what it proves, other than he is in a war zone. I'm sympathetic, but until his countrymen give up hatred and blaming others, that's how it will be.

Israel is the closest thing to a democracy in the region...

...and the people who rule there are non-natives who were simply given the land, and the Palestinians are in a pseudo-democratic terrorist state within a semi-totalitarian substate of israel.
Great example for the region, huh?