I have not been easy on my reader in this paper. I have gone directly at you. But I don't apologize for it. You have been too easy on yourself. You have looked away too many times. Now is the time for action, while it is still relatively easy. You could still turn things around with just a vote, if you voted in a beeline away from the establishment. A big third party vote in this cycle could have sent a strong message. A huge third party vote could have saved us, by itself. But it looks like that is not going to happen. I see no sign of it. I almost took a pass on writing this paper, it seemed such a waste of breath. But maybe there is something here that will be just the right flavor for the moment. Maybe some spark lives here. How do I know? Perhaps the door will still be open in two years or four years.
As for myself, I am not waiting. I intend to vote for Cynthia McKinney, Green Party. I have voted for Ralph Nader since 1996, and I don't regret a single vote. The Democrats' trashing of Nader only confirmed my opinion of them and of him, and I have never once looked back. But Ms. McKinney has spoken out more strongly on the issues I hold most dear. She has shown her fortitude by attacking Donald Rumsfeld on the House floor. And she is the best 911 Truth candidate. All those who have patted themselves on the back for voting for a woman or a black should have more reason to congratulate themselves if they voted for Ms. McKinney, who is both. I have no stake in her femaleness or her race: she is simply the most impressive candidate. She has 1000 times the substance of Obama and 1000 times the honor of Hillary Clinton.
If you have any real desire for change, you must vote third party.
Thank you for taking the time to do your part in educating anyone who will listen. The problem is that perhaps even on this fine website, an article with the depth of this is most likely going to be too inconvenient to be fully read and considered.
I share your frustration with the lack of interest regarding our sinking ship. I constantly try to educate anyone who will listen. I end up speaking to and writing for myself. We are stuck in the position of watching a familiar catastrophe unfold in its latest incarnation, while being powerless to prevent it or to protect anyone including ourselves from it.
I truly thank you again for a superb article. For what it is worth, your work has been deeply appreciated by at least one person; and I have recently begun to learn that such an occurrence, though not necessarilly satisfying or seemingly worthy of the effort, is in and of itself a wondrous event.
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Raphael Sidelman (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 29 comments)
on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 5:11:33 PM
Here in the United States, the specator sport commonly referred to as "elections" is a necessary illusion in the grand deception commonly called "democracy".
One of myriad fundamental myths and hoaxes that have woven their way into the American psyche, carefully constructed and vigorously guarded.
We are presented with a choice of between two. Two that are approved by the men behind the curtain. And even that choice has been made for us.
The winning candidate has been chosen. The stakes could not be higher and not to be left to chance, like to the whims of the "bewildered herd".
Ask yourself this: How would it be that over twenty past US presidents are directly related to British Royalty and many more were Freemasons?
Accident? Coincidence?
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Michael McCoy (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 396 comments)
on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 6:43:56 PM
But... but... he's one zillionth of an iota less bad than...
Miles you are my new hero. I started this article thinking, I know all this, and it looks kind of long but... But that my friend was a holy rant indeed. I'm even going to send this along to some of the people who should actually read it.
What's interesting is how early the fix was in. The lesser-of-two-evils logic has been in play since early in 2007 and there still has been no way to significantly influence the outcome. Remember how the press latched onto the Clinton/Obama fight months before the first primary? Like all the progessive dreams had come true, we get to choose between an African-American and a woman. Wow!
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Doug Rogers (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 113 comments)
on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 10:35:04 PM
The article says that Obama graduated from Harvard Business School. That is incorrect. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was the first African American to be president of the Harvard Law Review.
I have other typos and slips you missed. You could dismiss the whole article on them as well. I have tried to correct these errors, but I find this computer editor hard to work. A better edited paper can be found on my own website, mileswmathis.com. The business for law error was corrected there long ago, since I know how to work that editor.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 5:50:46 PM
to be honest, I didn't realize until just his hour that I needed to recheck this article. I had thought it had been refused. I am not sure why it is up.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 5:57:18 PM
I haven't done a similar in-depth analysis of McCain since I never even considered voting for him. This article was written to my friends, and none of my friends is planning to vote for McCain. Everyone I know is patting themselves on the back and acting superior for voting Dem. This is for them.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 5:55:20 PM
I am writing this to convince you to vote for neither party candidate, since they have both been hand-picked by the powers-that-be-by factions that do not have your interest anywhere in their agendas. You have been groomed to think you have no viable choice outside the two parties, and I am attempting, first of all, to ungroom you.
If you were really trying to be as even-handed as you seem to claim, you would certainly work just as hard to convince McCain voters as to convince Obama voters of your agenda.
However, your action in posting this particular article to a progressive web site suggests only that you are interested in having progressive votes go to someone other than Obama. The clear effect of such voting would be to elect McCain instead of Obama. This may not be what you want, but if it were then what you are doing would be a sensible strategy to follow.
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PrMaine (13 articles, 12 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 415 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 6:20:53 PM
this is my last reply to you since you aren't making any sense. You quote me being even handed and then argue that I am not evenhanded. This article, by itself, is clearly just as dismissive of the Republicans as the Democrats. My greatest criticisms of Obama are that he talks and votes like the Republicans. How can that be misread as a recommendation for McCain? Here you quote me saying not to vote for either party. What is unclear there? Vote Green or Nader, that is my clear point. The fact that I have not written equally long articles on McCain means nothing. I have not written equally long articles on Gary Coleman either, but that does not mean I want Gary Coleman for President. Your argument is just silly. It is like criticizing MacBeth by writing Shakespeare and telling him he didn't also write Paradise Lost.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 6:35:40 PM
I recently conducted a poll on OpEdNews devoted to the question of whether there were trolls active on this and other progressive sites working on behalf of the McCain campaign. 96% of those responding believe that there are such trolls.
A troll would have to be pretty dense to announce that he or she is a troll. A troll with any sense would probably not urge others to vote for McCain because few people reading a progressive site would be persuaded to do that. Instead, a troll would urge people not to vote for Obama. Possibly the troll would urge people to vote for some third-party candidate.
To be absolutely clear:
I am not saying you are a troll. I am not saying you have been recruited by a troll. I am simply saying that you are indistinguishable from a troll; I am saying that the article you have published here is exactly the kind of article that a troll would write.
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PrMaine (13 articles, 12 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 415 comments)
on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 7:19:00 AM
I said I wasn't going to keep baiting you, but I think I will. The more you post, the dumber you look and the smarter I look. So please say some more things about polls and trolls. One or two more posts and I bet I can get you to totally unwind.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 8:32:39 PM
"...your action in posting this particular article to a progressive web site suggests only that you are interested in having progressive votes go to someone other than Obama."
I am a conservative... a Ron Paul Republican, to be exact. I am much more conservative than McCain, who's voting record is not so different than Obama, from what I've seen.
The content of this article alone refutes your argument, as it smears both the Republican & Democratic parties alike. Perhaps you are just upset because you support Obama? Why do you support him? Read the article and answer the question: What has Obama done to show he would be a good choice as President of the united States of America? I have asked that question of McCain.
Don't assume this website draws only socialists... er... 'Progressives'..., as it draws from a much larger reader base than that.
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Antony Reed (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 2:44:41 PM
The content of this article alone refutes your argument, as it smears both the Republican & Democratic parties alike. Perhaps you are just upset because you support Obama? Why do you support him?
Although I found the article to be a pretty tedious reciting of attacks on Obama, I did just re-read it and I did not at all find it to be a balanced attack on both Republican and Democratic parties. It seemed to me to be a pretty one-sided attack on Obama.
My support for Obama is almost entirely because I see him as the only possible alternative to continued Republican rule under McCain. I think that such a continuation of the insanity of the last eight years would be an unthinkable disaster.
Obama was not my first choice, that was Kusinich. Obama was not my second choice, that was Edwards. I would not say now that these would be better choices than Obama, however, because I have less confidence in either of them winning against McCain than I am about Obama winning. And yes, I think that Obama will be a much better president than McCain could be, though I have no better a crystal ball than anyone else.
By the way, thanks for keeping this on the issues. Unfortunately, my dialog with Miles Mathis seems to have just descended into the relm of personal attacks, and I will not participate in that kind of discussion.
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PrMaine (13 articles, 12 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 415 comments)
on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 10:23:33 AM
Too late to beg off, PrMaine. You accused me, without evidence, of being a liar. I accused you, with daily evidence supplied by you, that you were intellectually challenged. Which of us is being the troll? By the way, has anyone else noticed that this person who won't quit attacking me, based simply on prejudices, is hiding behind a pseudonym? I am publishing under my own name, and answering these slurs under my own name, but Maine here could be anybody. If any spooks were here, trying to create dissension, they would lead by publishing a poll planting suspicion, a "troll poll." This, despite the fact that online polls, like all other polls, are completely unverifiable. How do we know 96% said yes? Even if we are presented with a list of names, the poller can always simply jettison any data that he/she wants to, and we would have no way of knowing. How do you track negative data that has gone into the recycle bin? Keep talking, though, Maine, please. Popularity is tracked not only by hits and email, but by comments. People are already coming here just to see me toy with you. Remember, it was the troll stuff that was really amusing. This latest about how you are voting Obama to avoid McCain, though admittedly stupid, is pretty boring. Tell us about more fake polls you have run.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 4:24:36 PM
Maine, you say, "Thanks for keeping this on the issues," but when did you ever mention any issues? You have been "arguing" by slur and innuendo from the beginning. How can you expect me to take you seriously when you say stuff like this: "I am not saying you are a troll. I am not saying you have been recruited by a troll. I am simply saying that you are indistinguishable from a troll." That's right out of the Karl Rove debating tricks handbook, used so that you can deny having called me a troll or liar, and so that you can avoid giving any evidence I am a troll. Then you say, in passing, that you found the article "a pretty tedious reciting of attacks on Obama." Really? Could you tell me where else you have seen those extensive CFR quotes pulled apart like I did it? Who am I "reciting" there? I bet you can't name one article that even resembles this one. The anti-Obama articles I have seen are very different in tone and substance. Most fall under the Jack Cashill rubric, where the author tries to show that Obama is really a Muslim or is didn't write his own memoirs or whatever. A Republican mole is not going to look closely at Obama's voting record, since McCain's is even worse, as I say in the article. A Republican mole is not going to tell you that terrorism is fake or recommend you look at 911 Truth. Come on! This article is indistinguishable from troll writing only by those who can't distinguish night from day. In continuing to pursue your line of argument, you only show how little you think of my other readers ability to read. But if you want me to be gentler, I will put it this way: "I am not saying you are a pettifogger. I am not saying you are working for some pettifogging government agency. All I am saying is that you are indistinguishable from a pettifogger."
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 7:18:02 PM
Well, it looks like I moved this person on, finally. She probably decided it was cozier to go to the websites of Naomi Klein or Noam Chomsky and accuse them of being trolls or Republican moles. Klein and Chomsky are saying the same thing I am, with different research and different examples and a different style. Chomsky has called Obama a blank slate, and Klein has hit Obama very hard for his chief economic advisor Furman. Look it up.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 9:08:17 PM
I did read the article through, long tho it was. You made a few good points; something to ponder. I was very interested in how you made it a bad thing that Obama has counselors/mentors that have been described as hawk, pawns of the military industrial blah, blah, blah. It would seem to me that anyone who would aspire to be the leader of the "Free World", (sometimes I just have to laugh when I say that), should take all opinions into consideration. And as a wise man once counciled, "hold your enemies closer".
Anyway, what I particularly enjoyed was the huge comedic irony of the entire missive. Several times, you tell us not to vote, as it is useless, makes no difference, meet the new boss, etc. Yet you spent an incredible amount of space decrying the fact that on many occasions, Mr Obama did not vote. Hilarious. Did you plan it that way, if you did, then as Jon Stewart oft says, "that was a long walk for that punchline.".
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Kathy Stuart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 31 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 10:20:13 AM
Where did I say not to vote? I said to vote for McKinney, unless this has been edited out from under me. I said to vote in a beeline against the establishment. I said that your vote was worth just as much as ever, without Obama. I said that we could solve this whole thing with a vote. You are a lousy reader, dear.
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miles mathis (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 6:02:57 PM
btw you can read my article on voting, as further proof. It may still be up here, or it is still up on my own site, mileswmathis.com/writein.html. It is called "The DIY Ballot." I believe in the power of the vote, if not in the power of a vote for Obama.
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