Posts Made By: Les Chambers

Do you think that the fact McCain was the only candidate who had actually been tortured, might have swayed his opinion?

Les

Keep in mind that one of her first acts as Gov. was to sheppard legislation to approve a 1750 mile long natural gas pipeline. Does McCain thinkg we are blind AND stupid?

Les

What bugs me most is not the complete transparency of picking her,(do they really think that women will vote GOP just because it has a female evangelnazi on the ticket?). The main point is that his choice is the clearest evidence yet that McCain has sold his soul to win. When he locked up the nomination I was pleased because with Obama and McCain, I viewed it as a win-win election. I supported McCain in 2000---before he was swift-boated by his own party---and I am certain the world would be a better place if he had been president then. However, now he is 72 years old, has suffered 2 bouts with cancer and has permanently swollen lymph nodes. He should realize that there is a significant probability he will not survive his term without atleast periods of incapacitation. To put this country into the hands of someone as woefully unqualified as Palin, is nothing short of reckless. While it is not certain her manicured nails will ever be on "the button" an international crisis is a virtual certainty and it will still come down to Palin taking that 3:00 a.m. call. As his first "presidential" decision, he has shown that self-interest trumps country. "Country First" my a$$. He's sold out and we all know to whom.

That is the same fear mongering that always surfaces when right wing nut-jobs try to justify interrogation tactics that have been condemned by every responsible nation on the planet. It's an unrealistic scenario trotted out to frighten the sheep into looking the other way. Much more likely is that once torture gains "some" acceptance its use would grow like fungus. The thought will be that if its o.k. to use in a "worst-case" scenario, then maybe its o.k. to use in a less dire situation, and then in an even less threatening situation. Before long, they're waterboarding people who have no real information to give or solid evidence against them. Where does it end? Those nazis at Guantanomo tortured Bin Ladin's driver for christ sake. How much critical information did they think he had? We live in darkening times.

I'd respond to your post but Murphy's Second Law constrains me.

Don, First of all, whether I am an "executive" or not does not alter the weakness of your argument. (Actually I ran a corporate legal department for 10 years) Besides recent US history is replete with "executive" decision making that cost plenty of lives and money: Enron? Iraq? Exxon Valdese? Executives, particularly senior executives rarely share the same moral compass as most people. Second, torture is an inherently unreliable means of obtaining information. The fact that zealots of a former time tortured millions of people into confessing to the impossible, i.e. being witches or posessed by demons should tell you that the methods do not produce reliable results. So, why use a faulty, morally reprehensible tool if not just to satisfy some Clint Eastwood, chest-thumping ego trip? Finally, "Acting within the law" does not mean changing the "law" to fit what you want to do. Particularly when that law is honored by the rest of the civilized (or should I say "the civilized") world?

No one said pipelines are per se bad. The point was--and I think you know this--is that the pipeline had been stalled for years because of enviromental, economic and other concerns. Yet, Palin who is tied to the oil industry makes it her first priority as governor. Forces it through the legislature while ignoring every concern raised against it. It illustrates that her priorities may not be the same as the public as a whole. This is a far right ideologue who wants to sunset the Endangered Species Act so polar bears wont get in the way of the oil industry. Nothing worse than an idealogue and she is a poster-child for putting an agenda before the facts.

[QUOTE Oh, please. The left is shot through with ideologues of their own. And "putting an agenda before the facts" just means that someone else weighs the facts differently than you do.


I agree that there are ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum. The difference is that when idealogues of the left win out, we all win. Internationally, the US govt cooperates with other nations to foster diplomatic solutions to problems and to protect everyone's environment. Domestically, there is a safety net that includes guaranteed health care and education for everyone rather than just the privileged few. OTOH, when the ideologues of the right prevail, we get international isolation, wars that costs 100,000 lives and counting, detention camps, torture, continued subjugation to the oil barons and record levels of national debt. And in the case of Palin, repeal of the Endangered Species Act, dilution of all environomental laws, elimination of a woman's right to choose, and oh yes, replacing teaching evolution in public schools with the superstitious crap called "intelligent design". In short, the left means to help, the right hopes only to rule and to line its own pockets.

How could you have any doubt what an ideologue is after the last 8 years?

Seems, the candidate for the "Country First" party is actually an Alaskan separatist: www.telegraph.co.uk

According to the leading conservative paper in Great Brittain, Palin is tied to the Alaska Independence Party which calls the 1958 vote for statehood a fraud and urges its members to infiltrate mainstream politics to accomplish the party goals of "the compete repatriation of the public lands held by the federal govt...to the people of Alaska" She is a documented member of the party as late as 1996 and sheaddressed its convention this year and praised the Party on "its good work."

Regardless of any merits the AIP may have, the fact that McCain selected someone associated with it--or any separatist movement-- further calls into question his judgment. Can anyone say Eagleton?