Let the campaign begin!

RedOranje wrote:Please do NOT take the time to explain what you mean by "Polishing your penis," thanks.

No please do, I am interested...

OT: So, how long till the next war searching for WMD occur?

Then he can explain it to you via PM to keep the thread from getting off-track.

And please don't troll.

RedOranje wrote:Then he can explain it to you via PM to keep the thread from getting off-track.

And please don't troll.

And this is me getting all excited! (only kidding, the messiah version)

Anyway:



Obama was really the obvious choice I am surprised Mitt got that many votes.

First off, you all want to know:
I just wanted to say "I'll take a shower before I go out" in the weirdest possible way.

Secondly:

Augstein, like most German's imagine that the U.S. is ruled from a central authority in Washington D.C. (most imagine this to be the President of the USA). Germans and Austrians can't help thinking this way because this is how their own countries are organized, i.e., in a very hierarchical political system, with a powerful leader at the top that calls all the shots. They fail to understand that in the American federal system, the federal government in Washington D.C. DOES NOT rule the states, and that the states are politically independent and sovereign entities.

The commentator fails to understand, that Germany, as well as Austria, ironically, are both Federal Republics, meaning that we got exactly the same kind of Federal and State level differentiation as the US. Well, not exactly, but close enough. We call our States "Länder", but besides that: education, police, local infrastructure is all down to the individual States, or Länder.

The Chancellor actually has less power than the President, since the two chambers of parliament have more power and authority in both Germany and Austria than Congress does in the US.

So the federal government in the city of Berlin DOES NOT rule the states in many regards.

In Germany, the federal government is supreme.

False.

It calls all the shots

Kinda true, but that's also kinda true for the federal government in the _US.

and is headed by one single person, the Chancellor, that wields both executive and parliamentary power.

Tremendously false. The chancellor wields executive power ONLY. The chancellor is expected to drive the initiative behind legislature, and has, what is called "Richtlinienkompetenz", which basically means the Chancellor has great influence on the agenda of the parliament, iE what gets discussed.
It may seem like the chancellor leads the parliament, but that is only because the chancellor is elected by the parliament, which is why the chancellor is usually backed by the legislative branch, because in Germany, a chancellor without a majority in the Bundestag just can't happen.

The German federal government is responsible for almost all important aspects of German life.

I don't really know what the commentator meant by that. The federal government holds the states to the constitution here, but quite a lot of legislature is on the state level. Maybe a bit less than in the US, but it's hardly a mind-shattering difference.

The German mind therefore, simply CANNOT understand or comprehend, that the American federal government has no say in the domestic affairs of the State of New York. Germans imagine that the President of the United States, and by extension, the government of the United States is somehow responsible for the dismal state of the power lines in Brooklyn. Hence the constant criticism of the "United States" by German intellectual.

I'm pretty sure that Augstein isn't arguing that the Feds took away money from New York State to build WMDs, he's arguing that the political culture in the US just doesn't value proper infrastructure. And not burying power lines is indeed quite retarded, for a first world country.

Also, the Federal government has a say in quite a few of New York States' affairs, the power lines just happen to be part of those affairs. Funnily enough, in Germany the power and plumbing infrastructure is managed by the equivalent to the states as well, so - duh.

Augstein is just arguing that Germans would go apeshit if they had gaping potholes in the street, but somehow their taxes went to a huge military budget.
The commentator has to stop thinking in absolutes, Augstein is arguing priorities.

I spend a lot of time here explaining to my German and Austrian friends the strict separation of powers in the United States. I explain how the federal government is a distinct political entity from the states, and that the US Constitution guarantees the states autonomy in all areas not explicitly ceded to the federal government.

Which is nice of him, because it will help his German and Austrian friends understand Germany and Austria which are run exactly the same way.

I try to explain to them that the federal government's power is severely restricted by the constitution and that it's only responsible for foreign policy, currency, postal system, patents, national defense and trade between the states. All other areas of responsibility belong to the states.

Except federal regulations, the war on drugs, homeland security, all those other ridiculously numerous agencies that operate on a federal level, the perfect capability of the Federal Government to infringe on States' autonomy simply by issuing a new law... This guy is not exactly a political expert.

The federal government therefore has absolutely nothing to do with the cities of New York. If Augstein has a complaint about the power lines in Brooklyn, the proper venue to vent this complaint is the government of the State of New York, not the government of the United States. Similarly, the government of the United States has exclusive rights to conduct foreign policy. If has the right to develop new weapons and no U.S. state can object. The United States government has its own budget, which differs entirely from the budget of the State of New York. There is no overlap.

There is huge overlap. The quota of taxes that go to either State or Federal level varies, and the Federal Government has huge influence on that quota. The US also are a transfer union, and many states receive money from the federal government, which the federal government receives from other states.
Ironically, at this time, for the most part, the blue states are bankrolling the red states.

To blast the United States therefore, for the condition in Brooklyn is like someone complaining to the European Union about the ghettos of Paris. Apples and oranges.

European foreign policy, the Schengen visas, and the outer-european borders actually have huge influence on the ghettoisation of French migrants. :X

Also, no, it wouldn't. The European Union isn't a nation-state, the US of A are.

But then again, hating the U.S. is a favorite pastime of German intellectuals nowadays.

This is, however, very true, and a bit embarassing to me as a German.

Augstein delights in the destruction of America by "Total Capitalism"

Of course he does. He's a leftist being proven right by reality. I don't say the gloating is a nice touch, but he has a point.

however he conveniently forgets that it was Germany that destroyed the world. Twice.

First off: once. We destroyed the world once, the other time we just destroyed a lot of soldiers.
Secondly, that is a retarded argument. If anything, this means we know a thing or two about destroying the world, and destroying our own democracy because of an irrational fear of leftist ideology, which is exactly what got Hitler elected.

But for the most part I really don't think that's a good argument. Just because the criticism comes from a German, and Germany is guilty of epic war crimes, doens't mean that no German will have anything productive to say ever again, ever. In terms of science and philosophy, Germany is still an intellectual juggernaut.

It was America, with it's "Total Capitalism" rescued and rebuilt Europe

Rebuilt yes, but Europe was mostly rescued by the Red Army.

and it's the capitalist American military, funded by capitalist American taxes, that continues to safeguard Europe's security and prosperity.

No it's not. Nobody is threatening Europe's security. The Russians aren't gonna invade once the Yanks leave Ramstein air base. The French and Brits have enough nukes, and frankly, the conventional armament of the Central Europe is still big enough to fend off anything except the US. Half the US' military spending would still have it be the largest military on the planet.

It is America that does all the dirty, back-breaking work around the globe that Europeans consider themselves too refined and civilized to undertake.

Yeah thanks for all the drone strikes. I'm sure backing Mubarak together with us filthy Europeans for decades showed the world how serious the USA and Europe are on advancing democracy...

Let's not forget that almost all the world's current major problems are a direct result of Europe's adventures of the 19th century.

That's very true, and I'm sure most Europeans think that it was a mistake. I can say, though, as a European: We really didn't expect you Americans to then start picking up our slack and start colonizing shit yourselves. We widely regard having an Empire as counter-productive these days.

These facts are far too painful for German intellectuals to ponder. It's much easier, and more satisfying, to point the finger at America. Bad, bad America!

Well it's not like Europe is any better than America, but I think that's besides the point. It must be permitted to criticise a bad move, even if you've not been perfect yourself.

As another American that lived in europe I have the same sentiment

Well, you both should read more.

I think we both know that when the US designed the system in Austria and Germany it was supposed to be even more decentralized than in the US, however as we have seen over the years the effects have been eroded. We still see the parties in Germany managing the country Top-down with them having big sway over the who they choose to run and who to elect once in parliament, in the US this is not so as primaries give the opportunity for minority groups (Such as the tea party for better or for worse) to have more sway in picking candidates IE change is possible grass roots. Were seeing a similar problem in the UK ATM with Cameron not being able to hold the tories together thus being challenged because of his inability to politick.

I also find it very discerning how in Germany democracy and centralization of power in the ballot box are held as mantras of western civilization, it just seems to be part of the German character to do this. Lets not forget this is the state that introduced the welfare state and the total warfare state.

About American militarism I think the overflows to Europe are humungous, lets not forget about the US being able to take care of instability in many parts of the world which could have easily spread elsewhere like wild fire. The example closest to europe being Bosnia which was in their own back yard and they couldnt do anything about it until the Americans took charge. Also the hegemony of the US military has been hugely positive for World trade as weve seen since the fall of the berlin war, its enabled the US to make sure that Asia does not turn into China gobbling up countries around it while Energy sources of the world are safe and supply lines are dependable even though they are long and mostly reside in the most unstable of regions.

In particular we have germany and the other countries of northern europe hugely benefiting from all this new trade (One example being Nixon opening up China to the west) while they themselves have not contributed much to creating it.

The united states government was never intended to be a nation state, it was instead intended to be a regulator and a a face to the outside world (Military and foreign service). Thats why in the US you see that national identity has nothing to do with the USG as the USG is not supposed to actively do anything inside the country, instead American identity is tied to self govern ship, optimism and business. Which are the reasons why people came here in the first place, this is why many call out socialists and progressives for wanting to "destroy america".

I still dont understand how total capitalism (not nearly as capitalistic as I want it to be, more corporatist) is failing. As far as I can see the US has 2.1% growth this year while Europe and the UK are in recession, in the US we have developed shale technologies which should the make the biggest producer of Oil by 2017 and Natural gas has an even bigger prospect. The biggest company in the world is American and its CEO is homosexual.

Oh balls, you're in that bubble deep, aren't you? Just went ahead and pretty much just ignored my post, repeating what that other guy wrote? This is gonna be a very unsatisfying experience for both of us, I'm afraid.

But what the hell, let's just pretend that facts can reach you:

Yuri Yukov wrote:I think we both know that when the US designed the system in Austria and Germany it was supposed to be even more decentralized than in the US, however as we have seen over the years the effects have been eroded.

That's not necessarily true. It was designed to be more centralized than the previous, failed, democracies of both Austria and Germany.
Decentralization was a huge point besides denazification, but I'm not sure there was a "more than XY"-threshold. That being said, you seem to believe that Germany is some kind of centralized European ancient, even though I just wrote the opposite in the post above yours.
This is not true.
Germany even makes a serious effort to spread its agencies all over the country.
Our supreme court is in Karlsruhe, the Government is in Berlin, a lot of the central administration is still in Bonn, the BND is in Pullach in Bavaria, the central bank is in Frankfurt... And so on, and so on.

The individiual Länder do the same, Hesse, for example, has it's government in the state capital of Wiesbaden, but the administration is spread over Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Kassel, and Gießen.

We still see the parties in Germany managing the country Top-down with them having big sway over the who they choose to run and who to elect once in parliament, in the US this is not so as primaries give the opportunity for minority groups (Such as the tea party for better or for worse) to have more sway in picking candidates IE change is possible grass roots.

This is actually mainly true, with the parties holding a lot of power in Germany. What you underestimate, however, is how fractured the parties themselves are. Just at the moment the chancellors party has the big problem of the chancellor herself being undermined by party leaders on the state level. So while the parties have a lot of power, and I agree this is a problem in Germany, there is still not the kind of central authority you believe exists.

I also find it very discerning how in Germany democracy and centralization of power in the ballot box are held as mantras of western civilization, it just seems to be part of the German character to do this.

No they aren't. And if you've ever travelled in Germany from Munich to Hamburg, the idea alone of a "German character" would be utterly laughable to you. You are obviously oblivious to the diversity of German culture.

On militarism: I'm not arguing that America should get rid of it's military. I'm arguing that you're spending too much, and even if you weren't, you need to have an honest debate about military spending, and ATM I see the military budget as the 'holy cow' of US politics.

I also don't give half a shit whether the US were "intended" to be a nation-state, they are a nation state. They fulfill every single attribute in the definition of a nation-state. The US protect the integrity of their territory, they have a common political system, currency, language, and government. The federal laws supercede the state laws, and there are multiple federal agencies operating in all states, as well as federally maintained infrastructure.

Whatever the source, the US have become a nation state.

And to your last point:
When your wealth gap keeps widening and widening, you have to seriously ask the question whether economic growth in terms of GDP actually means anything.

____________________________________________________

But this is totally missing my point:
The post you quoted above was arguing that Germans can't understand American politics because we're so unbelievably centralized and authoritarian, that we can't possibly grasped the concept of autonomous states. This is utter bullshit.


Edit: Also I glossed over your point about the welfare state. I don't really know what a "total welfare state" is supposed to be, since it's basically just an empty talking point, but let's talk about welfare states:
Yeah we invented that shit. We're proud of it. It ensures a minimal standard of living for everyone. We think it's part of the human rights. One basic right in Germany is called "human dignity", a minimum standard of living is considered part of human dignity here.
You know who agreed with that?
The French, the English, the Japanese, Spanish, Italians, Portoguese - EVERY SINGLE INDUSTRIALIZED NATION IN THE WORLD BAR THE US has universal health care and a social safety net.

But sure, all of the world is wrong, only the modern Republicans got it right.

Ill get back to you Viva soon, I just wantd to post this

* Obama won "Women" by 11 points (55% to 44%). This was very important, because women made up 53% of voters.
* Romney won "Men" by 7 points (52% to 45%). Men were only 47% of voters.
* Obama won "Young voters" (18-29) by an astounding 24 points (60% to 36%). These folks were 19% of total voters.
* Obama won "Young middle aged voters" (30-44) by an impressive 7 points (52% to 45%). These folks were 26% of total voters.
* Romney won "Middle-aged voters" (45-59) by 5 points (52% to 47%). These were 29% of voters.
* Romney won "Older voters" (60+) by 9 points (54% to 45%). These were 25% of voters.
* Obama won "Black voters" by a staggering 87 points (93% to 6%). Blacks were 13% of voters.
* Obama won "Asian voters" by a remarkable 47 points (73% to 26%). Asians were 3% of voters.
* Obama won "Hispanic voters" by a remarkable 44 points (71% to 27%). Hispanics were 10% of voters.
* Romney won "White voters" by 20 points (59% to 39%). Whites were 72% of voters.
* Obama won gay, unmarried, and working-mother, and parents-with-young-kids voters by massive margins.
* Romney won "married" voters.
* Obama won uneducated (no high school), modestly educated (high school), and super-educated (graduate degree) voters.
* Romney won college grads by a small margin.
* Obama won by a staggering margin voters who said their financial situation is the same or better than 4 years ago.
* Romney won by a big margin voters who said their financial situation is worse.
* Obama won households making less than $49,999 by ~20 points
* Romney won households making more than $50,000 by 6-10 points
* Obama easily won voters who classify themselves as Democrats and Liberals and narrowly won those classifying themselves as Moderates
* Romney easily won voters who classify themselves as Republicans and Conservatives, and very narrowly won Independents
* Obama won by a landslide in big cities and easily in small cities.
* Romney won easily in rural areas and more narrowly in the suburbs and towns.
* Obama won Jewish voters handily (2% of voters) and Catholic voters (25% of voters) narrowly
* Romney won protestants (53% of voters) and white evangelical Christians (26% of voters).

Its incredible how Romney won over almost all categories that are more productive (except for Asians and Jews)

Comment about this

It’s a safe assumption to make that the reelection of Barack Hussein Obama to the office of the United States Presidency will be talked about for decades to come. In history textbooks, 2012 will be referred as a momentous election year when the nation came together and collectively decided to stick with a president through the thick. Like Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and other “transformative” presidents before him, Obama will be praised for keeping the country together in the midst of economic difficulty. In sum, he will be called a popular figure who triumphed over America’s old guard and lead the nation into a new era of solidarity and renewed social tolerance.

The lavishing has already begun with prominent voices on the left like Paul Krugman declaring the “new America” has made Obama their champion. It’s being said in major newspapers across the world that this new incarnation of the American experiment is much more attuned to the struggle of minorities and the downtrodden. They went with a President who will use the divine power of the federal government to lift the disenfranchised onto the platform of dignified living.

Like most of what passes for accepted history, this is downright propaganda. The country as a whole wasn’t frightened over sudden change by throwing out the incumbent. It wasn’t a declaration of a new, more diverse America. Shaping a new destiny wasn’t on the casual voter’s mind on November 6th.

There is a rational explanation for the President’s reelection which doesn’t invoke a deep or complex meaning. The only way to explain the outcome is in the simplest and direct prose: the moochers prevailed.

Obama’s winning tactic was to do what any respectable man does when he wishes to have something; he bought it. From cell phones and contraceptives to food stamps and unemployment benefits, the Obama administration kept the money flowing to ensure a steady turnout on Election Day. The coup de grâce was painting his opponent as a second coming of Dickens’ Scrooge that was ready to cut the voters from their trust funds.

The campaign made no attempt to hide this tactic. In an online video, celebrity Lena Dunham was tapped to extol the virtues of government-supplied birth control. The advertisement was aimed at a younger generation already guaranteed access to their parent’s health insurance till they turn 26 (and then morph simultaneously into full grown, self-sufficient adults). The video was a great demonstration of the campaign strategy but it was topped by one woman from Cleveland, Ohio who exemplified the public trough mentality on camera. Commonly referred to as the Obama-phone lady, this woman was so enraptured by her “free” cell phone and other welfare entitlements, she was determined to “keep Obama in president” to use her exact words. Though clearly dimwitted, Ms. Obamaphone was a phenomenal orator of the President’s message of goodies in exchange for votes.

Though it worked splendidly, Obama’s strategy was not brilliantly crafted from the minds of experts. It was the same bread and circus routine employed by the Romans and applied to modern demographics that relish in a victim-like mentality. Women, the youth, blacks, Hispanics, and the elderly were all catered to through subtle patronization and outright payoffs. It was the same tactic employed by the Roosevelt administration when the New Deal got underway. As journalist John T. Flynn wrote of the popular 32nd president:

It was always easy to sell him a plan that involved giving away government money. It was always easy to interest him in a plan which would confer some special benefit upon some special class in the population in exchange for their votes.

The 2009 auto industry bailout was Obama’s great tribute to Roosevelt. By infusing two auto giants with the federal government and still maintaining the appearance of their private ownership, the President convinced a majority in the battleground state of Ohio to put him back in the White House. Criticizing the auto bailout was the last nail in the coffin for Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations.

None of this is to say the election of Romney would have meant the much needed axing of the welfare state and state-subsidized dependency. The army of bureaucrats tasked with cutting checks in the name of kindness would still work to expand their budgets. The wealthy interests the former Massachusetts governor looked to appease were welfare queens in themselves and would likely receive all the state coddling money can buy.

Obama won the election by catering to the worst of all human traits: envy. He demonized the rich while promising to take more of their income and give it out in the form of entitlement payments. Under his presidency, the attitude of the takers will continue to swell as they clamor for more privileges. Anybody who speaks out against the Robin Hood scheme will be called an unconscionable xenophobe and a hater of the poor. The protestant work ethic will slowly be choked into submission through deliberate iconoclasm launched by the political class and their pet media pundits.

The opponents of capitalism will keep blaming money and greed for all the ills of society. They will also keep wearing fashionable clothes and coordinating protests on their smartphones while drinking caffeinated drinks that cost the same as some third world country’s average salary. They will scoff at hard work when it’s the sweat and labor of generations before them that has created the living standard they enjoy today. Under their tutelage America will be brought into its final form of, as right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh accurately defined it, a “country of children.”

Economist Thomas DiLorenzo sums up the key to Obama’s victory in this pungent bit of fine wisdom:

Every time Romney made one of his “let’s get the economy going again” speeches extolling the virtues of hard work he terrified the millions of welfare bums and parasites and motivated them more than ever to stand in line for hours to vote for Santa Claus Obama, their “savior” from having to work for a living. (It’s always the low opportunity cost class that has the “luxury” of spending half a day or more standing in a line).

With Obama’s reelection comes the onward march of American society’s degeneration into that of the lazy, bitter masses forever on the lookout to loot a hapless minority still trying to make an honest living. The coming brave new world will be filled to the brim with self-righteous individuals eager to shuffle around the Earth’s gifts to achieve some kind of equality. In the process, none of them will produce a lick of good outside of satisfying their own disturbed need to dominate. It will be rule of the inept over the capable. Barack Obama will lead the way. He will be replaced in four years with someone that follows the same doctrine. The collective age of the country will continue to collapse till it reaches just shy of an unclothed infant wailing for succor. Except it will be grown men doing the crying and no one around to feed him because the sensible among us has already left.

Santorum

Because he screwed disabled children world wide?

Also didn't Yuri want to come back to my post?

Yuri Yukuv wrote:Ill get back to you Viva soon, I just wantd to post this

* Obama won "Women" by 11 points (55% to 44%). This was very important, because women made up 53% of voters.
* Romney won "Men" by 7 points (52% to 45%). Men were only 47% of voters.
* Obama won "Young voters" (18-29) by an astounding 24 points (60% to 36%). These folks were 19% of total voters.
* Obama won "Young middle aged voters" (30-44) by an impressive 7 points (52% to 45%). These folks were 26% of total voters.
* Romney won "Middle-aged voters" (45-59) by 5 points (52% to 47%). These were 29% of voters.
* Romney won "Older voters" (60+) by 9 points (54% to 45%). These were 25% of voters.
* Obama won "Black voters" by a staggering 87 points (93% to 6%). Blacks were 13% of voters.
* Obama won "Asian voters" by a remarkable 47 points (73% to 26%). Asians were 3% of voters.
* Obama won "Hispanic voters" by a remarkable 44 points (71% to 27%). Hispanics were 10% of voters.
* Romney won "White voters" by 20 points (59% to 39%). Whites were 72% of voters.
* Obama won gay, unmarried, and working-mother, and parents-with-young-kids voters by massive margins.
* Romney won "married" voters.
* Obama won uneducated (no high school), modestly educated (high school), and super-educated (graduate degree) voters.
* Romney won college grads by a small margin.
* Obama won by a staggering margin voters who said their financial situation is the same or better than 4 years ago.
* Romney won by a big margin voters who said their financial situation is worse.
* Obama won households making less than $49,999 by ~20 points
* Romney won households making more than $50,000 by 6-10 points
* Obama easily won voters who classify themselves as Democrats and Liberals and narrowly won those classifying themselves as Moderates
* Romney easily won voters who classify themselves as Republicans and Conservatives, and very narrowly won Independents
* Obama won by a landslide in big cities and easily in small cities.
* Romney won easily in rural areas and more narrowly in the suburbs and towns.
* Obama won Jewish voters handily (2% of voters) and Catholic voters (25% of voters) narrowly
* Romney won protestants (53% of voters) and white evangelical Christians (26% of voters).

Its incredible how Romney won over almost all categories that are more productive (except for Asians and Jews)

The hell.

So according to you, the following people are unproductive or less productive...
People in big cities
People in small cities
Democrats
Moderates
Households making less than $49,999
People who said their financial situation is the same or better than 4 years ago
Uneducated people(no high school)
Modestly educated people (high school)
Super-educated people(graduate degree)
Gays
Unmarried people
Working mothers
Parents with young kids
Hispanic people
Black people
Young middle aged people
Young people
Women

Looks like there's even more than 49% of these unproductive people!

And that's why Romney lost - a complete failure to understand most of the electorate.

It's about time you came to terms with it.

Like most of what passes for accepted history, this is downright propaganda. The country as a whole wasn’t frightened over sudden change by throwing out the incumbent. It wasn’t a declaration of a new, more diverse America. Shaping a new destiny wasn’t on the casual voter’s mind on November 6th.

This quote is incredibly accurate - Obama didn't win because people were afraid of changing from him. He won because Romney ran a sh*t campaign that included a lot of sentiments like the one you just posted. Obama could've canceled all the social welfare programs in the country, and that segment STILL would've voted for him because Romney was out of touch with the so called "welfare population." Maybe if he had looked around and realized that receiving government aid doesn't make you lazy and useless (hello, massive subsidies for the man featured in the 'I did build this' ad?), he would've had a better chance of winning. Instead, he put his foot in his mouth over and over again by spouting crap like the editorial you just posted, and rightfully got his ass handed to him by the population he was marginalizing.

Oh, and also he was on the wrong side of most issues according to exit polls.

Forza Rossoneri wrote:

Yuri Yukuv wrote:Ill get back to you Viva soon, I just wantd to post this

* Obama won "Women" by 11 points (55% to 44%). This was very important, because women made up 53% of voters.
* Romney won "Men" by 7 points (52% to 45%). Men were only 47% of voters.
* Obama won "Young voters" (18-29) by an astounding 24 points (60% to 36%). These folks were 19% of total voters.
* Obama won "Young middle aged voters" (30-44) by an impressive 7 points (52% to 45%). These folks were 26% of total voters.
* Romney won "Middle-aged voters" (45-59) by 5 points (52% to 47%). These were 29% of voters.
* Romney won "Older voters" (60+) by 9 points (54% to 45%). These were 25% of voters.
* Obama won "Black voters" by a staggering 87 points (93% to 6%). Blacks were 13% of voters.
* Obama won "Asian voters" by a remarkable 47 points (73% to 26%). Asians were 3% of voters.
* Obama won "Hispanic voters" by a remarkable 44 points (71% to 27%). Hispanics were 10% of voters.
* Romney won "White voters" by 20 points (59% to 39%). Whites were 72% of voters.
* Obama won gay, unmarried, and working-mother, and parents-with-young-kids voters by massive margins.
* Romney won "married" voters.
* Obama won uneducated (no high school), modestly educated (high school), and super-educated (graduate degree) voters.
* Romney won college grads by a small margin.
* Obama won by a staggering margin voters who said their financial situation is the same or better than 4 years ago.
* Romney won by a big margin voters who said their financial situation is worse.
* Obama won households making less than $49,999 by ~20 points
* Romney won households making more than $50,000 by 6-10 points
* Obama easily won voters who classify themselves as Democrats and Liberals and narrowly won those classifying themselves as Moderates
* Romney easily won voters who classify themselves as Republicans and Conservatives, and very narrowly won Independents
* Obama won by a landslide in big cities and easily in small cities.
* Romney won easily in rural areas and more narrowly in the suburbs and towns.
* Obama won Jewish voters handily (2% of voters) and Catholic voters (25% of voters) narrowly
* Romney won protestants (53% of voters) and white evangelical Christians (26% of voters).

Its incredible how Romney won over almost all categories that are more productive (except for Asians and Jews)

The hell.

So according to you, the following people are unproductive or less productive...
People in big cities
People in small cities
Democrats
Moderates
Households making less than $49,999
People who said their financial situation is the same or better than 4 years ago
Uneducated people(no high school)
Modestly educated people (high school)
Super-educated people(graduate degree)
Gays
Unmarried people
Working mothers
Parents with young kids
Hispanic people
Black people
Young middle aged people
Young people
Women

Looks like there's even more than 49% of these unproductive people!

And that's why Romney lost - a complete failure to understand most of the electorate.

It's about time you came to terms with it.

This post almost makes me want to bring reps back.

Spot on

Great thread. Didn't even know it existed.

I'm with Forza Rossoneri and Stevieg8 on this; basically laughing off half the population, all of which are eligible to vote, deserves to be punished in any kind of democracy.

VivaStPauli wrote:I'm with Forza Rossoneri and Stevieg8 on this; basically laughing off half the population, all of which are eligible to vote, deserves to be punished in any kind of democracy.

It's just poor political strategy; forget the actual policy of it for a minute, it's just a mistake that no one running for elected position - let alone president - should ever make.

Noam Chomsky: Smoke and Mirrors, or Civil Liberties Under President Obama

Mike Stivers for Truthout: Anyone following issues of civil liberties under Obama knows that his administration's policies have been disastrous. The signing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which effectively legalizes indefinite detention of US citizens, the prosecution of more whistleblowers than any previous president, the refusal to close Guantanamo, and the adoption of ruthless positions in trials such as Hedges vs. Obama and Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project don't even encapsulate the full extent of the flagrant violations of civil, political and constitutional rights. One basic question that a lot of people seem to be asking is, why? What's the rationale?
Noam Chomsky: That's a very interesting question. I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. The one thing that did surprise me is his attack on civil liberties. They go well beyond anything I would have anticipated, and they don't seem easy to explain. In many ways the worst is what you mention, Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project. That's an Obama initiative and it's a very serious attack on civil liberties. He doesn't gain anything from it – he doesn't get any political mileage out of it. In fact, most people don't even know about it, but what it does is extend the concept of "material assistance to terror" to speech.
The case in question was a law group that was giving legal advice to groups on the terrorist list, which in itself has no moral or legal justification; it's an abomination. But if you look at the way it's been used, it becomes even more abhorrent (Nelson Mandela was on it until a couple of years ago.) And the wording of the colloquy is broad enough that it could very well mean that if, say, you meet with someone in a terrorist group and advise them to turn to nonviolent means, then that's material assistance to terrorism. I've met with people who are on the list and will continue to do so, and Obama wants to criminalize that, which is a plain attack on freedom of speech. I just don't understand why he's doing it.
The NDAA suit, of which I'm a plaintiff - it mostly codifies existing practice. While there has been some protest over the indefinite detention clause, there's one aspect of it that I'm not entirely happy with. The only protest that's being raised is in response to detention of American citizens, but I don't see why we should have the right to detain anyone without trial. The provision of the NDAA that allows for this should not be tolerated. It was banned almost eight centuries ago in the Magna Carta.

It's the same with the drone killings. There was some protest over the Anwar Al-Awlaki killing because he was an American citizen. But what about someone who isn't an American citizen? Do we have a right to murder them if the president feels like it?
On Obama's 2012 election campaign web site, it clearly states that Obama has prosecuted six whistleblowers under the Espionage Act. Does he think he's appealing to some constituency with that affirmation?
I don't know what base he's appealing to. If he thinks he's appealing to the nationalist base, well, they're not going to vote for him anyway. That's why I don't understand it. I don't think he's doing anything besides alienating his own natural base. So it's something else.
What it is is the same kind of commitment to expanding executive power that Cheney and Rumsfeld had. He kind of puts it in mellifluous terms and there's a little difference in his tone. It's not as crude and brutal as they were, but it's pretty hard to see much of a difference.
It also extends to other developments, most of which we don't really know about, like the surveillance state that's being built and the capacity to pick up electronic communication. It's an enormous attack on personal space and privacy. There's essentially nothing left. And that will get worse with the new drone technologies that are being developed and given to local police forces.
That expansion of the surveillance state, do you see that as another facet of expanding executive power?
It's an enormous expansion of executive power. I doubt that they can do much with this information that's being stored. I've had plenty of experience with the FBI in simpler years when they didn't have all this stuff. But they had tons of information. They were just drowning in it and didn't know how to use it. It's sort of like walking into the New York Public Library and saying "I want to be a chemist." You've got all the information there, but it's not doing any good.
Might that change with enhanced technology and search capabilities?
There will be new ways of combing through the data electronically to pick up things that look like suspicious connections, almost all of which will mean nothing, but they may find some things. It's kind of like the drone killings. You have what's called "intelligence." Sometimes it means something; other times it means nothing. It also means that if you have suspicions of somebody for some reason, whatever it is, you can go in there and find all sorts of incriminating stuff. It may not be legally incriminating, but it will be used to intimidate people - threatening to publicize things people meant to be private.
Do you think nonviolent, verbal dissent could eventually be criminalized?
It could be criminalized. Anybody who has looked at law enforcement at all knows that one of the techniques is to try to force confession or plea-bargaining by just using material that the person doesn't want publicized. That's very common. You can threaten to expose something even if it didn't happen, or it's just a rumor. That's a powerful weapon to get people to cooperate or submit, and I suspect we're going to see a lot of that. We already do see a lot of it in the criminal courts. Most cases don't come to trial. They're settled. And a lot of them are settled in this way.
There's an alarming quote from Chris Hedges in reference to the NDAA suit. He said, "If we lose [the suit], the power of the military to detain citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military prisons will become a terrifying reality." How much weight does this case hold?
We've already lost that right. If you look at the criminal systems and the truly oppressed populations, like the black male population, for them, due process is sometimes existent, but overwhelmingly they just don't have it. You can't hire a lawyer; you don't get a decent defense and you don't have resources. That's how the prisons are filled.
Do you think the left in general could become another oppressed population in the future?
I don't think there's much of a threat there. I doubt that there'll be anything like what there was in the 60s. We're nowhere near the days of COINTELPRO. That was the FBI, and it was pretty harsh. It went as far as political assassinations. Again, the worst of which was directed towards blacks. It's harder to attack privileged whites.
It's the same with the drug wars. The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can't go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who's sniffing cocaine.
You can see the same with incarceration rates, which are increasing outrageously. That all started with Reagan. He started a race war. There's a great book by Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. She points out, and she's quite right, that it's very analogous to what happened after reconstruction when slavery was technically eliminated, but it just turned into criminalization of black life. You ended up with a large part of the black, mostly male population in jail, and they become slave labor. This runs deep in American history. It's not going to be easy to extricate. Privileged whites on the left will never be subject to this, though. They have too much political power.
How do the military-industrial complex and market forces in general perpetuate these systems of injustice?
Very much so. Just look at the incarceration rates now. They're driven by privatized prison systems. The development of the surveillance technology like drones is also highly commercialized by now. The state commercializes a lot of this activity, like the military does. I'm sure there were more contractors in Iraq than soldiers.
Is there any way that political economic reform - like, say, overturning Citizens United - might rein in these industrial complexes?
Well, I don't think Citizens United is likely to be overturned, and it is, of course, a rotten decision, but it does have some justifications. And there are some civil libertarians like Glenn Greenwald who more or less supported it on free speech grounds. I don't agree with it, but I can see the argument.
On the other hand, things like detention without trial, well, that strikes right at the heart of Anglo American law dating back to the 13th century. That's the main part of the Charter of Liberties, the core of the Magna. Now that had a narrow scope; it was mostly limited to free men.
It's interesting to see the way in which due process is being reinterpreted by Obama's Justice Department in regards to the drone killings. Attorney General Eric Holder was asked why the administration was killing people without due process. Well, there was due process, he said, because they discuss it within the executive branch. King John in the 13th century would have loved that.
In two years, we're going to get to the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and it'll be a funeral. Not just this, but every other aspect. Take rendition, for example. One of the provisions of Magna Carta is that you can't send someone across the seas for punishment. Much of the world participates in rendition now.
Is there potential for legal redress in cases like Hedges vs. Obama? How viable is that strategy?
Well, I was asked by Chris Hedges to participate and I'm one of the plaintiffs. I think it's a viable strategy. But NDAA is not the worst of it by far. Holder vs. Humanitarian Law is certainly worse. Legal strategies are certainly worth pursuing, and they can achieve results. Our system of law is flawed. But it's still a system of law. It's not Saudi Arabia.
There has been considerable outrage towards the Bradley Manning case - what do you make of the campaign to support him?
Bradley Manning is another case of radical violation of the Magna Carta. Here's a guy, an American citizen. He's been held in prison without trial for about a year and a half, a large part of it in solitary confinement, which is torture, and he's never going to get a civil trial. It'll be a military trial if he even gets one.
It's pretty remarkable to see that things like this are acceptable and not even worthy of comment. And Bradley Manning isn't even the worst case. Take, say, the first Guantanamo prisoner who went to what's called "trial" under Obama. Omar Khadr, his name is. Take a look at his history. He's a 15-year-old boy in his village in Afghanistan. Soldiers invade the village, so he shoots at them, trying to defend it. That makes him a terrorist. So he was sent to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, which is worse than Guantanamo. There's no Red Cross, no supervision, no nothing. He was there for a couple of years, and then sent to Guantanamo for another couple of years. Finally there came a chance to have a hearing before a military tribunal. This is mostly under Obama, for the record. His lawyers were told, You have two choices: You can plead guilty and you get another eight years in Guantanamo. Or you can plead innocent, in which case, you're here forever. So those are the choices his lawyers were given, practically in those words. So they told him to plead guilty. He's actually a Canadian citizen, and though they could have gotten him out anytime they wanted, Canada finally had the courage to step on the master's toes and asked for him to be released, though he remains imprisoned.
The point of this is that we accept it. There's virtually no protest over the fact that a 15-year-old child is treated this way.
Is it possible that we might see a revival of the global justice movement of the 1980s to launch large-scale movements against these practices and policies?
There is a global justice movement, and it does important work. But it doesn't conform to the prevailing doctrinal system of the powerful, so it doesn't make it into the public view. There was an interesting report published recently by the Open Society Institute, "Globalizing Torture." There were some very interesting aspects to that. It wasn't commented on much, but Latin American analyst Greg Grandin at New York University wrote a comment on it that was very important. He said that if you look at the map of countries that participated in the US torture practices - which remember, is a violation of Magna Carta - most of the world participated. Most of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. But there was one striking omission: Latin America. There wasn't a single Latin American country that participated. Which is striking because Latin America used to be under the thumb of the United States. They did what we wanted or else we would overthrow their governments. Furthermore, during that whole period, Latin America was one of the world centers of torture. But now they've liberated themselves enough, so they're the one area of the world that didn't participate. That helps explain the passionate hatred of Chavez and Morales and others who have taken Latin America out of the US's reach. Those are very important changes. It shows that things can be done.
In your time as an activist and writer, do you see states on a trajectory toward more openness, transparency and accountability, obviously with movements pushing that, or do you see them as more opaque, unaccountable and exclusive?
These things are always going on in parallel. In many respects it's more open and transparent. But there's a backlash to try to restore obedience, passivity and power structures. That struggle has gone on throughout history. Over hundreds of years, they do move toward openness, freedom and justice. Like Martin Luther King said, the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. It's very slow, and it often bends backwards and that's true of basically any movement you can think of. Civil rights, women's rights, freedom of expression, etcetera. And we should remember that, in a lot of these movements, the United States has been a global leader. Freedom of speech is protected in the US beyond any country I know - certainly more than the European countries in all sorts of ways. And it's not in the Bill of Rights, incidentally. It comes mostly from Supreme Court Cases of the 1960s, some of them in the context of the civil rights movement. That's what large-scale popular movements do. They push things forward.
Do you see potential for a movement like that in response to recent policy and practice in regards to surveillance?
There should be. Nobody could have predicted what happened in the 60s. In the 50s, things were totally dead. I lived through it, so I know. There was very little activism going on. Then, all of a sudden, things started to happen. Unpredictably. A couple of black kids sat in at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. It could have ended there. Cops could have come and thrown the kids in jail and it would have been over. But it grew into a huge popular movement. That could happen again.

Original here http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/15917-noam-chomsky-smoke-and-mirrors-or-civil-liberties-under-president-obama

Forza wrote:
The hell.

So according to you, the following people are unproductive or less productive...
People in big cities
People in small cities
Democrats
Moderates
Households making less than $49,999
People who said their financial situation is the same or better than 4 years ago
Uneducated people(no high school)
Modestly educated people (high school)
Super-educated people(graduate degree)
Gays
Unmarried people
Working mothers
Parents with young kids
Hispanic people
Black people
Young middle aged people
Young people
Women

Looks like there's even more than 49% of these unproductive people!

And that's why Romney lost - a complete failure to understand most of the electorate.

It's about time you came to terms with it.

Are you shocked at the truth or just shocked that what I said is not politically correct?

For the most part, GDP per capita of the states Obama won far exceed the GDP per capita of the states Romney won

Here are the States with the lowest GDP: (Includes DC)

51. Miss - Romney
50. Idaho - Romney
49. WV - Romney
48. SC - Romney
47. NewMex - Obama
46. Bama - Romney
45. Ark - Romney
44. Montana - Romney
43. Kentucky - Romney
42. Michigan - Obama
41. Tenn - Romney
40. Florida - Obama
39. Arizona - Romney
38. Maine - Obama
37. Missouri - Romney
36. Indiana - Romney
35. Georgia - Romney



....

Swanhends wrote:For the most part, GDP per capita of the states Obama won far exceed the GDP per capita of the states Romney won

Doesnt mean anything though and you know it. In the more economically well off states there are also more inner city folks, more super educated people, more women voting etc etc

If you look at it person by person you find more small business owners, more white collar jobs, more executives etc voting for republicans.