Help! Edwards is warmongering on C-SPAN...

[judy]

To recover from watching 5 minutes of the RNC, I am watching John Edwards on C-SPAN. And what do I hear? The same "terrist" crap that I am hearing from Smirky and the gang!

"The terrists have vowed to attack this country, bla bla bla we will get them, we will smoke'm out, freedom, September 11th, the flag, we can win the war, etc...Am I in the middle of a nightmare?
What does "finishing the job" in Afghanistan and Iraq mean????

Help me everyone, I am sooooo depressed. Whatever happened to Peace? Now he's yakking on about Karzai and Afghanistan. I think I am going to be sick....Help! Help me feel better!


This foreign policy talk is absolute empty war-mongering BS. No mention of changing the policies in the Middle East, of pulling out the troops, of becoming a Peace-loving nation that will stop its imperialistic ways, the notion of free elections in Iraq, he also said that "our allies" should help in the reconstruction of Iraq. No mention of the Iraqis themselves - who did it just fine on their own after Gulf War I - . I can't believe it. I'm turning off the TV.

"We can wage a better war" is not going to cut it for me. I will vote for them, but I disagree with them, and it makes me feel sad to see half a million people marching for Peace, and the 2 candidates talking about winning the war. BARF.
Sorry for the rant, but help me if you have reassuring messages.

[oasis]

1. He's like a fish out of water. Edwards is struggling through that speech.

[spooky3]

24. I thought he did a great job. Pointed out clear differences in

policy in language easy to understand. As he was doing it, at times I imagined Bush speaking, stumbling over his words, not understanding the points he himself was trying to make...what a contrast.

I don't agree with all of the remarks, but that's not the point. The point is that KE have to win the support of most voters.

[AP]

2. FDR did the same thing for the same reasons as Edwards. And they're smart.

Bush wants perpetual war to justify perpetual fascism. Edwards is arguing that there is an end to it, in the same way that fascism came to an end. It's to get people to look beyond terrorism so that they can look beyond Republicans.

I happen to think it's very sophisticated and very effective.

I know that the Republicans have driven Iraq as wedge into the left and some people are suckers for it. But you should try to see it from the perspective of average Americans.

[crickets]

16. Forgive me

That's a GREAT sig image. But please save the picture to your own computer, then upload to your own webspace or a Photobucket (or wherever) account, then point to that image for your sig pic. How do you upload? Right click to save the pic, sign up for a free account at Photobucket and follow the easy directions, or Google for WS_FTP LE to get a program for uploading by hand to web space, or ask around for other comparable means.

By hotlinking to that pic, you're stealing bandwidth from Kerry. This is costing him MONEY.

You're not the only one using sig pics that steal bandwidth - not by a long shot - so apologies for picking on you. Often, trying to convince people not to hotlink is like shouting down a well. I've almost given up, so usually I just click for Mozilla to block images from whatever server. It just doesn't feel right, though. I'd like to continue to be able to see images on John Kerry's blog server - when I visit that blog - so I shouldn't have to block images from his server because of your sig. Again, nice pic, but it's a bit large as sig pics go and you're stealing bandwidth.

Most importantly, this costs the Kerry campaign (and anyone else who's being abused in random hotlinked sig pics) MONEY. Please don't hotlink. It's easy and it's free to use other means to have a sig pic.

*cough* gamespot *cough*

The copyright thing is another kettle, but no one with any sense would confuse a sig pic with stolen art most of the time, so...

Anyway, forgive me for popping up out of nowhere (big reader, but usually quiet) and thanks!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

29. How can you be stealing bandwidth if internet access is "unlimited"?

I understand the "slowing down" part of it, and that's a qualitative thing, but ultimately it doesn't cost anything extra to anyone.

[AP]

32. I think Kerry considers this some of the cheapest advertizing they get.

[DrWeird]

3. Do you think Jimmy Carter is a racist?

No? Neither do I. But when he ran for Governor of Georgia he ran on a racist platform. His democratic opponent during the primary was all for civil rights and reaching out to minorities. Carter ran a bunch of racist campaign commercials to reach out to the white racist voters, "don't vote for that other guy. He wants the black vote. Vote for Jimmy Carter, he cares about real Americans."

This was certainly discomforting to the African Americans Carter had been working with in the state senate. Nevertheless he went through with it and pandered to the racists. And he won.

During his inauguration speech, Jimmy Carter reached out to the black community. He placed civil rights as his top priority and that he would spend his term working to end the desparity between the black and white communities of Georgia.

Basically Jimmy Carter, good christian man and Nobel Peace Prize Laurate, duped the racist swing voters into voting for him.

So you should remember: this is politics. No matter how good the politician is, he's still a politician.

Just something to keep in mind.

[AP]

6. Yes. Carter ran BECAUSE of race. It was basically THE reason he wanted

to be Gov.

Incidentally, in this interview http://www.swans.com/library/art9/ankomah9.html the President of Namibia praises carter for backing every anti-imperialist pro-Namibia UN resolution during his presidency.

Carter has said that one of his biggest regrets was when he was in the state house (?) in Ga, his Atlanta office was just down the street from MLKs and he always wanted to walk down there and meet with MLK because the reasons MLK was involved in public life were the same reasons Carter was involved in public life. He regrets that he never walked down to MLK's office because he knew he would pay the political price if he did. (I think I have that story mostly right, but why did Carter have an office in Atlanta???).

[anarchy1999]

19. Much as I love the man, I have questions. Major Tri-Lat and CFR.

Answer back if you can. I think not. Sorry for Jimmy.

[OneBlueSky]

4. if there's one thing Democrats should have learned by now . . .

it's that you don't win elections by trying to out-Republican the Republicans . . . doesn't work . . .

[AP]

7. The thing Democrats should know is that you don't run as the weak on nat'l

security candidate.

When people say don't out-Republican Republicans, they mean don't give up your strengths (being for the people, for jobs, for public education and for wealth accumulation among and economic opportunities for the working and middle class) in favor of Republican BS like the flat tax favoring the accumulation of wealth among the super wealthy.

They certainly don't mean accentuate your negatives, like arguing that you'd never ever defend America if it were threatened.

[JI7]

5. sorry, Edwards isn't warmongering and he is reaching out

to get support from many different types of people and is doing a good job of it.

[judy]

8. Thank you all, I will sleep on it...

I guess what most of you are saying is "he knows what he's doing, he knows what he needs to do to win"...May you be right!

I have a tendency to feel more like OneBlueSky: you don't win against Republicans by saying the same things except with less conviction.

But I'll take you guys' word for it, and keep my fingers Xed that you are right. And maybe stay away from the TV for a while :(

Edited for the sake of the emoticon...

[JohnnyRingo]

9. I understand your concern...

...I'm an original "vote for peace" voter from the 60s.

Like you, I know there is no option this year. I wish Kerry/Edwards would stop trying to appeal to the warhawks that comprise Buxh's base. I do understand why they have to.

My only hope is that it's just a campaign promise. They CAN'T be nearly as evil as Buxh, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

[AP]

10. The peace candidates didn't win in 68 and 72 either.

And RFK, who could have won, ran on race and poverty foremost and not on being anti-war. Peace people probably liked him, but it wasn't because he only talked about being anti-war. Hell, the guy worked for Joe McCarthy and had his anti-communist bona fides from that and from being a part of his brother's campaign, which was very anti-communist (in rhetoric, if not as much in practice). There have to be a few lessons in that, eh?

Comeon folks. It's time to be smart. There's no margin for ignorance about how politics works.

[pezcore64]

11. and we all knew this would happen

all us anti war people are left in the dark

gotta swoon the base before u can win nationally when you go centrist.

thats why im hoping movements started during the primaries within the party will start positive changes in the party as a whole.
we up against a big machine though, we gotta stick together.

all i hafta do is watch their convention and know why ill vote democrat

oh how they exploit death and war
its so sad
how dare they call themselves christians

[AP]

13. Many of us who want to win hoped it would happen and were deathly

afraid that someone who wasn't willing to cover their bases on Democratic weaknesses and accentuate Democratic strengths would win the primaries and then lose the gen election in a land slide.

The last thing we needed was an anti-war candidate who didn't think the tax code neeeded to unburden the middle class and shift some of that burden on to the people at the very top who've been making out like bandits for the past 20 years.

I don't understand why anti-war people don't put their energies into carring about the wealth transfer. The war is a subset of that larger issue. If there were no war, Bush would still be ripping off the working and middle class using some other mechanism. Would the anti-war people have complained if there were a candidate running who didn't care about THAT?

[G_j]

20. too bad that very same fear of looking 'weak' on defense

led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the official start of America committing troops to Vietnam. The LBJ tapes show this.
I'm sure that three million Vietnamese and over 50.000 Americans were happy to sacrifice their lives for American politics.

[AP]

33. Huh?

I'm not sure what that has to do with campaigning for president like you care about national security, which every winning Democrat I can think of has done, and several losing Democrats didn't do.

[Cronus Protagonist]

12. Winning the "war" means an end to the "war" - what's not to like?

Don't you want an end to the war? I do. Don't you want an end to the war without America "losing"? I do.

How it can be achieved is the difference between Bush and Kerry. Bush says an end to war is not possible and the only way to fight the war is to wage war. Kerry/Edwards says there is a way to win the war, and it's not the way Bush is doing it.

Your outrage is not over what he said, but what he did not say, and surely you can see that he cannot say what you want him to say and still win the election.

Swiftboat Veterans for Bush - TRUTH!!!

Lick Laura's Bush - Drop Bush Not Bombs! - FUCK BUSH
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[anarchy1999]

14. Same Old Same Old, Let it be the Lesser of Two Evils, as always.

Feel better yet, sorry. Go back at least 100 years. I really wish I was more positive about the situation we are in, but sorry, Reality BITES!

[AP]

15. Unfortunately, ALL of America votes for president and not just Dems.

And what Kerry and Edwards are doing is what Clinton, Carter, Kennedy, Truman, FDR, and Wilson did to win elections. Only LBJ was completely free to run whatever way he wanted 'cause he was not going to lose in '64 no matter what. Everyone else did what it takes to win.

What people are asking Edwards and Kerry to do is the same stuff that cost Dems the election in 68 and 72 and three in a row with Wlm J. Bryan.

[JohnKleeb]

17. actually we lost in '68 out of bitter luck

but other than that you have your bases covered. The war at home I feel is just as if not more important, I think.

[anarchy1999]

18. So you must know about the Tri-Laterals, the Bilderbergs and the CFR,

right? Good for you.

On edit, read up on it all and then get back to all us "tin foilers".
Okay? Thanks.

[Blue Wally]

25. You must have felt real good in Nov 1972

A totally unlikeable and unadmirable Richard Nixon totally destroyed a Democratic "feel good" candidate that ran on everything the far left of the Party holds dear.

[peace4all]

21. Edwards is a hawk

he claimed Saddam was a "clear and present danger" before the war.
His statements were very bellicose and hawkish compared to Kerry's.

[Guaranteed]

22. They're not even taking this far enough.

They have to be explicit about the fact that a better war on terror means not having attacked Iraq.

That should have been the cornerstone of their campaign. It's difficult for them, though, because of their IWR votes.

[G_j]

26. Richard Clarke

and plenty of others in 'the know' have said explicitly that the invasion of Iraq substantially hurt the "war on terror".
I doubt Edwards can come out and say this though, since his pre-war Senate floor statement was all gung-ho war talk.

[Guaranteed]

30. Right. This IS our winning strategy.

Unfortunately, I don't think either Kerry or Edwards are in the position to be pushing it.

[blm]

23. You don't already know that Kerry will change the Middle East approach?

Don't you know that he put the House of Saud on notice that he won't coddle them the way Bush does?

Why do you think Saudi owned CNN is so negative against Kerry?

[GreenArrow]

28. he won't have to coddle them

not with all those lovely new permanent bases we're buildling in Iraq.

[The Hair in my Nose]

27. RIGHT ON

we do not need a kinder-gentler generals dropping sensitive bombs on innocent people.

We need a Peace President that's the message of the half million in the streets of NYC. Not a War President (Chimp) or a War-Lite President (Kerry at present).

Kerry should emphasize the "silent backdoor draft" insanity of the present and present a plan to remove ourselves from Iraq and forge a sane relationship with the UN.

[Malva Zebrina]

31. I agree--It is so sad that we must vote for the better warmongerer

in this election. Really sad to me from the beginning as I watched the Dem candidates positioning themselves. Unfortunate that those with a better vision for peace, and less killing for empire were "not electable."