Greens Showing a Little Common Sense

Greens
I would be for Dean, who has brought universal heathcare, civil unions, etc., to his state, except for one huge fact: Dean would spend even more money on Homeland Security.
What the Greens propose is that the U.S. stop bombing other countries(especially, unilaterally),get rid of overseas bases,get rid of the IMF and the World Bank, and democratize OUR country.

I heard Dean on "To the Point" on NPR last night. I thought he did well. The interviewer, Warren Olney, who I usually admire, seemed a bit dismissive of Dean's credentials as a serious candidate. I thought the NY Times Magazine, in a profile last Sunday, used more or less the same approach. But I think his "The Democrat's Democrat" will go a long way.

Along these lines (media dismissal of Democratic candidates), the Times today discusses Sen. Bob Graham's habit of keeping notes of his daily activities as somehow implying unfitness for office.

http://nytimes.com/2003/06/04/politics/campaigns/04GRAH.html

Let's just pick these people apart--after all, who's more fit to be president than the incumbent?

Re: Greens


Yes, jeanbean, and look how voting for the evil of "2" lessors has succeeded so well in the past! Good grief

I certainly understand the thinking of the people who apparently intend to vote Green no matter what. And I understand the people who apparently intend to vote Green unless the Democrats offer someone special.

But the bottom line is that anyone who votes Green who realizes what a horrible danger this administration poses for our country -- and even more specifically for the composition of the Supreme Court -- and who has reason to suspect that their Green vote might help give Bush a second term -- really ought to re-think what they are doing.

ASIDE: I think the question of federal judgeships should be handled better than it is right now. Allowing a president such power over the judiciary -- considering the huge chasm between the philosophy of the parties in certain areas -- is absurd.

The president should retain the right to appoint judges -- but he should be limited to a field offered by some kind of other commission or panel -- so as to ensure that neither liberal nor conservative firebrands make it to the court.

It is the one area where moderation actually makes sense.

frank, i think if you go back and read what both I and Edgarblythe have offered is that we are Green's and will continue to vote locally in that manner, but BUT when it comes to getting shrub out of office its a different story.

Dys

I realized that. My post was not directed toward you -- or quite honestly, anyone else in this thread. I meant it in a more universal sense.

I really want Bush outta there -- although I truly fear some of his handlers more than him. He may just be a stooge.

D'art -- The NYTimes mag also did a job on Kerry -- not a good one or a nice one (and I'm not a Kerry supporter). The Dean article was a tad milder but also dismissive, as though they've decided to portray the candidates as blips on the radar (third party level), rather than respectable contenders. The writers of these articles strike me as being flip, probably hacks.

Frank -- I too want Bush outta here but some part of me concedes that the country may be getting what it deserves in Bush -- that this cycle of radicalism (albeit dangerous, possibly fatal) could contain the seeds of recovery, whereas a Bush-lite successor would have the effect of underdosing and protracting the illness, killing the patient.

I think you may be right, Tartarin, about Bush being the nasty medicine this country seems to want and that things may change for the better afterward. Then again, we had eight years of Reagan then four of Bush Sr., and then...Clinton?

He was OK, of course, but hardly a major corrective to Reagan. So I'm not sure I'm too hopeful at this point...

As for the NY Times Magazine coverage of the Dems, you're right. They write as though it's a given that Bush will be re-elected, so why take these guys seriously? And the righties think of the Times as being so ultra-liberal. Ha!

I don't think it's the Times. The PC thing at the moment among the young (and largely inexperienced) is to go along with Bush. Kind of rah-rah, slick, all for effect, but unable to sustain. Don't get me wrong when I say that Clinton (still the best president in years) is not what we want. I think we want reform, don't we? Precisely the end to rah-rah, slick, all for effect, and unable to sustain...

I have to tell you -- once I stopped kidding myself about who these people were, stopped calling them "conservatives" and started seeing them for what they are -- radicals and reactionaries -- the way forward began to seem much clearer. But it will take some serious discussions among the opposition about letting go of old concepts... Oughta be a thread...

At this point in time it certainly looks like it is a given. Much could change of course, but I can't fault the NYTimes for acknowledging something that the DNC clearly recognizes.

Radicals and reactionaries, they are, all right. And it's good to see them being referred to that way now. Maybe some people will open their eyes!

At this point relative to Bush Sr.'s re-election bid it looked like a non-contest. Granted, it took Perot to tip the scales (in my opinion, at least), but certainly it should indicate that today's poll numbers should be looked at as an accurate indication of public opinion on a scale of months or years.

Scrat -- it isn't up to the media (possibly you're too young to remember this!) to decide what the outcomes may be and tailor their reports to that outcome. They're supposed to just report and occasionally (in designated areas) opine.

Yes, Scrat, we have here what is traditionally called "a free press." A quaint notion, I'll admit, in this era of corporate media ownership. But they're not just supposed to tell us what they think we already know...

Ah, those were the good ol' days, D'art! Remember freedom? Justice? Too bad we've lost all that good stuff. But we have 500 channels. Can't beat that!!

Um, not to quibble, but when exactly were those days of freedom and justice?

Pre-Reagan, but admittedly intermittent. I'd like to say during the Clinton admin, too, but Congress stayed seated and pooping on Reagan's potty.

Tart & D'art... :wink:

I find it curious that two people who had such a problem with the discussions I've created regarding media bias are now lecturing me on your concerns about media bias and pretending I am blissfully unaware of how things "ought to be".

Is media bias only something about which we should be concerned when you are the ones perceiving the bias, or is it always something undesirable?

And I would differentiate between media bias and reporting realities which some find unpleasant. It is not a function of bias to report as if--at this time--Bush already has the race sewn up, if that is what polling and opinions are suggesting. (Was it biased reporting when media reported ahead of time that--based on the information they had at the time--the tax cuts were going to pass? Clearly the vote--which had not occurred--could have gone the other way. Clearly many of those reporters did not favor the tax cuts. Clearly then, it was not a function of their personal opinion-it was not bias--that led them to report as they did. It was reality.

I would be you dollars to donuts that the staff responsible for the NYTimes reporting of which you complain are not Bush supporters or likely Bush voters, so it makes no sense to suggest that their reporting in his favor is a function of their bias.

Or do you define "bias" differently than I am using it? I don't want to dismiss your opinion out of hand if I am doing so based on an erroneous interpretation thereof. If you see "bias" differently in this case, or mean a different form of bias than I have described, please clarify your meaning for me.

SCRAT:

You obvioulsyu haven't been to http://www.fair.org yet have you?