Who's Afraid of John Edwards?

[chiggerbit]

And, no, chlamor, I don't want my money back.

[judasdisney]

FourthBase wrote:

JD, do you mind if I cut and paste that on a couple other forums I belong to?

This notion of Edwards maybe being legit is exciting, since he has an infinitely better chance of winning than Kucinich. In retrospect, it infuriates me that he's basically been blacked out in the campaign coverage.

Thank you for the kind words. Feel free to take anything and distribute it anywhere.

The idea that Edwards has been "blacked out in the news coverage" is one of the reasons I reconsidered my previous 2004 disgust for Edwards. Although I lumped him together with Kerry, I did notice that Edwards quit the Senate for that Presidential race, in a show of commitment, while Kerry showed his craven self in clinging to his Senate seat.

The second thing that made me change my mind about Edwards was the bombshell news about Elizabeth, and their decision to "carry their Cross," and the classy nature of how they handled it. That press conference made a big impression on me. I saw a man who's lost his son and now his wife is terminal. Life has not been kind to him for the past few years, but he is fighting for more than himself. And whether Edwards wins or loses the nomination, I will have an authentic respect for the man.

It's hard for me to trust anyone, especially an American after the past 6 years, and especially a politician. I will always maintain a core of skepticism and mistrust. Maybe Edwards will lose my respect. But I doubt it.

Which leads me to the three questions I've been asking more than any other during this campaign:

(1) How are we being divided and conquered? (2) Are we "meant to react"? (3) Cui bono (who benefits)?

For example, this presidential race began a year early on November 30, 2006 (!) when (long-time Clinton supporter) Tom Vilsack of Iowa opened his Presidential campaign. Cui bono? The Clintons benefit: Vilsack opened the money race early, created money pressures for candidates whose last name was not Clinton, opened an opportunity to artificially inflate "Obama-mania" early so that Obama would "peak early" and have trouble sustaining momentum and appear to be declining later ... then Vilsack withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Hillary.

Nobody in political punditry has made any observation of this. You know: There are no conspiracies or networks of covert influence. It's all coincidence or happenstance.

Dodd's apparent backbone has impressed me of late. But where was Dodd's filibuster for Alito? For the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that shredded Habeas Corpus? Where's the passion for impeachment?

Cui bono? With Dodd's sudden Progressive activism, the "Progressive/Left" vote is further divided. Hillary's opposition is further split. And there's the backstory of Dodd's father to reconcile to his son's story. I'm beginning to wince that I gave the guy $20.

Now I see Greenspan attacking Edwards, and I must ask again who is receiving the greatest amount of negative attention. And why, for example, Dick Cheney lavished positives on Hillary -- "She's a formidable opponent" -- but smears on Edwards. Why are Murdoch and Clinton arch-enemy Richard Mellon Scaife now supporting Clinton, ostensibly? Greenspan's comments in particular are fascinatingly defensive.

There seem to be a great many "loose cannons" in the race, and although this may split the electoral vote and allow the House of Representatives to decide the election, nevertheless, it seems to be the last chance where "anything can happen" and where the Official Narrative is so difficult to control, with so many Wild Card factors. And the Plutocracy must be scrambling to keep a lid on it.

Whatever happened to Larry Flynt's big shoes-that-were-going-to-drop? Another fresh batch of revulsion I was looking forward to. Hope it's yet to come at the right moment in 2008.

[Gouda]

Though I really do thank JD and others for adding some perspective to the whole dirty game, I'd love to add a more little discomfort to mix:

1. Did Edwards say or do anything when Kucinich (and Gravel) were deliberately excluded from the Des Moines Register Debate?

2. Edwards and Hillary busted conspiring to pare down the crowd to "serious" candidates: LINK

At the end of a forum with the eight Democratic presidential contenders in Detroit on Thursday, Mr. Edwards walked up to Mrs. Clinton, leaned toward her and said: “We should try to have a more serious … smaller group.”

“We’ve got to cut the number…” Mrs. Clinton responded. “I think there was an effort by our campaigns to do that … it got somehow detoured. We’ve got to get back to it,” and added, “our guys should talk.”

3. Iraq pullout could take years, top Democrats say

"We've got to be prepared to control a civil war if it starts to spill outside the borders of Iraq," Edwards, who has run hard against the war, said at a Democratic debate in Chicago last week. "And we have to be prepared for the worst possibility that you never hear anyone talking about, which is the possibility that genocide breaks out and the Shia try to systematically eliminate the Sunni. As president of the United States, I would plan and prepare for all those possibilities."

[judasdisney]

Yeah, Gouda, those do bother me and they're not far from my mind when I ask myself whether I'm being duped. My eyes are open.

I've also been listening to about one hundred hours of the Emory archives (and here and here also) in heavy and long doses, with radical daily immersion, and I have a new sense that fascist networks and organized crime and conspiracy operations are so extensive and pervasive and widening and ascendant that no person who is not criminally compromised can open any access to any part of the system, even for themselves inside an elected office to learn authentic information, let alone attempt to achieve any modicum of reform.

It's grim.

[chiggerbit]

Although not all that admirable, I would suppose it would be strategic for Edwards to want to reduce numbers in order to have a bigger split on podium time in debates. Funny, though, it would seem to work against Hillary, I would think. She does better in sound bites, so would be spared a need to make longer, more comprehensive answers.

As for Tom Vilsack, that man is very obedient to Hillary's interests, and I assume has reason to believe he will have a plum place in her administration when she wins. Don't be terribly surprised if he's her vp when she wins the nomination. (Yep, I think she's going to win the nomination.) They have a lot in common, including having corporate interests at the top of their agenda. Sometimes I've wondered if the reason he endorsed Kerry back in the last election was to screw the chances for the Dems in 2004, thereby keeping Hillary's place open for when she ran this time. Vilsack's downside for her is that he is even colder than she is, and it would be terribly difficult to try to cozy them both up for the voters. I don't trust him, and I keep wondering if he's capable of engineering some low-down, upsetting event here in Iowa against Obama. Still waters run deep, and that man is very still.

[AlicetheKurious]

Chlamor quoted:

Throughout his career and public service Sharon has shown courage, including his historic decision to evacuate Gaza. More than anyone else, Sharon has, in my judgment, believed that a strong Israel is a safe Israel and that Israel needs to defend itself against security threats.

We also need to remember the three soldiers and their families for whom it is well past time for their return home. They are a symbol of the extraordinary challenges facing Israel and Middle East. One source of strength is the bond between Israel and the United States, which is a bond that will never be broken. For more than half a century both countries have benefited from this alliance. We share common values such as freedom and democracy. I was in Israel in 2001 and I’ll never forget just as I was ending my visit, a Hamas suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew up the Sbarro pizzeria. It made an impact on me to see the extraordinary sacrifice made by the Israeli people everyday. They continue to make sacrifices to ensure your security and achieve peace. I saw firsthand the threats you face every day. I feel that I understand on a very personal level those threats. The challenges in your own backyard – rise of Islamic radicalism, use of terrorism, and the spread of nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction – represent an unprecedented threat to the world and Israel.

At the top of these threats is Iran. Iran threatens the security of Israel and the entire world. Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons. For years, the US hasn’t done enough to deal with what I have seen as a threat from Iran. As my country stayed on the sidelines, these problems got worse. To a large extent, the US abdicated its responsibility to the Europeans. This was a mistake. The Iranian president’s statements such as his description of the Holocaust as a myth and his goals to wipe Israel off the map indicate that Iran is serious about its threats.

Well. You guys had me going there, wondering if maybe Edwards represented some genuine hope for change.

How pathetic. Candidates are allowed to say and do all kinds of things, as long as they grovel before the colonialist, expansionist, Judeo-supremacist rogue state. Isn't that how the game is rigged?

Give me a candidate willing to name Israel's crimes for what they are, and I'll show you a candidate who's either dead under mysterious circumstances, or whose career is finished before it began.

So this hero of the people, this champion of the little guy, is an admirer of war criminal and mass murderer Sharon -- a man known for lying even to his political and military superiors, a man globally famous for eagerly killing tens of thousands of helpless men, women and children, a man infamous even in Israel for his money-grubbing corruption and greed.

This hope for peace is reading faithfully from the script written by the bloodthirsty, warmongering neocons. No offense, but after reading those words, you'd have to be a half-wit to believe Edwards would lift a finger to stop Iran becoming another Iraq.

If Edwards' supporters were the average tv- and drug-addled Murkin, I'd chalk it up to mere ignorance. But on the RI board? Chiggerbit, you say you don't want your money back after reading Edwards' revoltingly ass-kissing speech. I guess you must be used to it: your parents paid, you're paying, and your children and their children (if they survive) will be paying for the U.S.' bondage to the zionist state. IE, the "bonds that will never be broken", if Edwards (and every other candidate has his or her way).

Keep paying for Israel's war machine, keep paying for wars designed and planned by Israel for Israel, with your devastated economy and lives. Israel is already taking steps to latch on to a new host, China, once America has been finished off. The way things are going, that's not too far in the future.

I like what populistindependent said:

We should look at who represents us, or might, not whom we represent.

Who is loyal to us, not to whom we should be loyal.

Who listens to us, not to whom we should be listening.

Who supports us, not whom we should be supporting.

That is incompatible with bowing down to the Israel-firsters, whether you can admit that to yourself or not. Israel cannot survive on its own -- it needs a superpower to support it. And to assure the uninterrupted support of that superpower, the latter must be infiltrated and controlled at the highest levels so that the interests of the zionist state come first.

If that's what you want for your country, that's your choice, I guess. Like Henry Ford is quoted as saying to buyers of his cars, "You can have it any color, so long as it's black."

[chiggerbit]

Popindy may be right, don't vote for the person, vote for the impact that person can have. After reading this below, I'm reminded that Hillary didn't even begin to talk against the war in Iraq until she saw the impact that the anti Iraq war candidates were having, and she realized that she might not have a chance of winning without going anti-war. I wish I could pin down when she first started to talk the talk.

Do you suppose Edwards had an inside plant on this one? The timing sure is interesting.

http://tinyurl.com/289vrg

Hillary Announces Minimum Wage Hike Bill One Day After Edwards Challenge

By Greg Sargent - December 21, 2007, 10:25AM

On Wednesday, John Edwards challenged his rivals to join him in supporting a hike of the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour. Late yesterday, Hillary announced that she'd introduced a bill to accomplish just that:

“With stagnant wages and skyrocketing costs for healthcare, energy and college, working families in America need a break. That is why yesterday I introduced legislation to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, and link the minimum wage to Congressional pay raises after that,” said Clinton in a Thursday statement. The senator said the measure was “the first bill ever to call for a $9.50 minimum wage.”

The Hillary campaign says that Hillary actually introduced the bill Wednesday, though it didn't announce this until late yesterday. Whatever the sequence of events here, it's clear that Edwards' impact on this race has been to yank the debate to the left on a bunch of fronts, including this one.

Late Update: The Hillary campaign points out that she has a long record of working to raise the minimum wage. For instance, she introduced legislation to do this back in 2006.

[overcoming hope]

With a Paul presidency corporations will be completely free to ravage the country, and the super-wealthy will be further entrenched as an aristocracy. Paul is also firmly in the camp of the religious right. That combination, that alliance - the religious right and corporate interests - is Republican party business-as-usual and perpetuates the duopoly and the power of the few over the rest of us.

[populistindependent]

Popindy may be right, don't vote for the person, vote for the impact that person can have.

Actually, I am talking about the impact that we might have by effectively using the candidacy as a rallying point. I am not talking about embracing nor rejecting the candidacy, let alone the man. We aren't shopping and assessing the quality and features of the merchandise and agonizing over whether it suits our personal tatstes.

The idea that we could have some candidate who was not beholden to the wealthy and powerful is naive at best, and Alice and chlamor are correct in their criticisms of Edwards.

When I read the arguments for and against various candidates, I imagine drowning people after a shipwreck looking at various flotsam and jetsam floating by, and rejecting pieces because "that piece has no state room" or "there aren't any deck chairs on that one so it isn't perfect" while others say "this piece drifting by is a LOT better than the other ones."

Don't people get that we are in a crisis? That it is what we do with the meager and pathetic things we are being offered that matters, not what those things "are?"

How pampered and spoiled and delusional must a people be to think that the perfect ship is going to come by and rescue us with little or not effort by us?

If it were going to be easy, well then we wouldn't be in the crisis we are in, would we? If we aren't in a dire crisis, then why worry about all of this so much? You can't have it both ways.

Does Edwards suck? Of course. Take a look around. It all sucks. Isn’t that what we are saying day after day here? Could some of the things Edwards is saying be used as a rallying point and leveraged into building serious resistance to the tyranny? Very possibly.

[populistindependent]

Well. You guys had me going there, wondering if maybe Edwards represented some genuine hope for change.

No one person, as a celebrity and a "choice" can "represent some genuine hope for change" Alice. Not in this country, not now.

Edwards is not our savior. But the very fact that so many people are debating whether he is or he isn't tells us something very revealing about ourselves.

Even if we had the imagined perfect person, even if a candidate for public office and voting for that candidate was sufficient or even useful in and of itself, that would not accomplish anything except to be used by people to slump back into their complacency and denial - "oh goodie we have the perfect guy now, so I will contribute some money and vote for him and everything will be just fine."

The problem in this country is not bad leaders, it is bad followers.

Much danger and much hard work ahead. No way around that. Most of the political "opinions" expressed on the boards are desperate attempts to deny the reality of the crisis and to seek some painless and easy way out.

Never mind the politicians. What about us? That is where the problem lies.

[FourthBase]

The problem in this country is not bad leaders, it is bad followers.

Much danger and much hard work ahead. No way around that. Most of the political "opinions" expressed on the boards are desperate attempts to deny the reality of the crisis and to seek some painless and easy way out.

Never mind the politicians. What about us? That is where the problem lies.

We're definitely desperate, but we're not attempting to deny reality, and I don't think we're seeking painless and easy ways. I totally agree with everything else you wrote.

[populistindependent]

With a Paul presidency corporations will be completely free to ravage the country, and the super-wealthy will be further entrenched as an aristocracy. Paul is also firmly in the camp of the religious right. That combination, that alliance - the religious right and corporate interests - is Republican party business-as-usual and perpetuates the duopoly and the power of the few over the rest of us.

With the complete de-regulation of industry and the elimination of all public agencies, what then would stop corporations from ravaging the country?

[sunny]

I think Edwards can be lead by us into seeing the light re Israel.
I've said it before on this forum, I think Edwards has a Kennedy like willingness to learn, grow, and change if necessary. But if there is no constituency out here pushing him, or anyone else for that matter, toward an equitable policy when it comes to Israel, or the phony GWOT or the ME in general, then nothing resembling sanity will come from him or any other candidate. There is just too much pressure from the other side without an equally demanding force insisting upon and fighting for justice on a regular basis.

the impact that we might have by effectively using the candidacy as a rallying point

Alice:

Give me a candidate willing to name Israel's crimes for what they are, and I'll show you a candidate who's either dead under mysterious circumstances, or whose career is finished before it began.

You've nailed it there, so are we to demand that Edwards boldly go where no other candidate is allowed to go without taking his life in his hands? I wish it were so, but here we are talking about how we can't expect candidates to be heroes on white horses. With Edwards, I think based on other factors discussed in this thread, that we can allow ourselves to hope that once in office he will learn and grow, and seeing the injustice, attempt to right it, with the help of a vigorous constituency for justice.

[populistindependent]

We're definitely desperate, but we're not attempting to deny reality, and I don't think we're seeking painless and easy ways. I totally agree with everything else you wrote.

I think we all need to be alert to the understandable tendency to deny reality to one degree or another, and to hope for easier and less painful ways out, myself included. There is such a strong and pervasive current of denial all around us every day that even the best swimmers among us can tire swimming against the current.

[populistindependent]

You've nailed it there, so are we to demand that Edwards boldly go where no other candidate is allowed to go without taking his life in his hands? I wish it were so, but here we are talking about how we can't expect candidates to be heroes on white horses. With Edwards, I think based on other factors discussed in this thread, that we can allow ourselves to hope that once in office he will learn and grow, and seeing the injustice, attempt to right it, with the help of a vigorous constituency for justice.

Each discussion about oppression and injustice anywhere leads to a dicsussion about oppression and injustice everywhere.

This is a complicated and difficult subject, isn't it though?