The Relevence of Clinton or Sanders in USA Policies.....a personal POV

Tom,

I do still highly respect most of the congregants who are faithful to their religion or cultural heritage, as long as they allow me and others space, freedom from attempts at conversion equal rights and independence. Mostly the lower level of the religious pyramid structure of groups are populated by folk that would give the shirt off their back. I will always give them open arms and whatever support I can. I celebrate these odd differences as just "ways of living" like one may like "The Beatles" or a particular Bordeaux wine.

As to Catholics, the encyclicals Pacem In Terris, Nostra Aetate as well as the remarkably liberal expressions, especially towards Jews, "as our respected elder brothers" and to gays "for forgiveness of the Churches persecution of them for so long), of the latest Pope from South America show the Catholic Church is absorbing ideas of respect and tolerance for others at an astonishing pace.

Still, I too fear folk who are filled with fervor to spread "salvation" of any kind, here or in heaven.

That includes Hillary, Bernie and Donald, all exaggerating what they can actually deliver and the benigness of their published agendas.

Ultimately all the leaders suffer from a heavy overlay of self-delusion, promising what they cannot deliver.

As to Donald, yes he is a loud mouth and a rabblemonger but at least he will turn the Republican Party upside down. He expresses the xenophobia that Republicans have actually fostered themselves.

Still, he cannot be much worse than Hillary in foreign policy!

Asher

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

As to Donald, yes he is a loud mouth and a rabblemonger but at least he will turn the Republican Party upside down. He expresses the xenophobia that Republicans have actually fostered themselves.

Still, he cannot be much worse than Hillary in foreign policy!

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I hate to see you make that near-equivalence between the foreign policy prospects of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

It is often tempting to say, "So-and-so is a genocidist but he can [possibly] make the trains run on time."

Do not let The Donald suck you into his repugnant world. Restrict your approbation of uncouth thugs to their appearance in films.

And of course he can't make the trains run on time.

Of course, if he can destroy the Republican party he may earn some points for "redeeming social value".

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Asher,



I hate to see you make that near-equivalence between the foreign policy prospects of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

It is often tempting to say, "So-and-so is a genocidist but he can [possibly] make the trains run on time."

Do not let The Donald suck you into his repugnant world. Restrict your approbation of uncouth thugs to their appearance in films.

And of course he can't make the trains run on time.

Of course, if he can destroy the Republican party he may earn some points for "redeeming social value".

Best regards,

Doug

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Points well taken!

Despair makes us choose between bad and worse!

Asher

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

Points well taken!

Despair makes us choose between bad and worse!

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Despair is not required. When we are dealing with voting for politicians, the best we can usually hope for is a choice between one kind of bad and another kind of bad!

Best regards,

Doug

Asher Kelman said:

Points well taken!

Despair makes us choose between bad and worse!

Asher

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Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Asher,



Despair is not required. When we are dealing with voting for politicians, the best we can usually hope for is a choice between one kind of bad and another kind of bad!

Best regards,

Doug[/QUOTE

The lesser of two evils would be not to vote for either candidate.

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Hi, James,

James Lemon said:

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Asher,

Despair is not required. When we are dealing with voting for politicians, the best we can usually hope for is a choice between one kind of bad and another kind of bad!

Best regards,

Doug

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The lesser of two evils would be not to vote for either candidate.

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And what benefit would that confer, and upon whom, and how?

We (that is, in the US) have way too much of that already.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, James,


And what benefit would that confer, and upon whom, and how?

We (that is, in the US) have way too much of that already.

Best regards,

Doug

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Hello Doug

Maybe a new party in the future will be in store and in the mean time you might sleep better. Why support something that you are not in agreement with?

James

Hi, James,

James Lemon said:

Hello Doug

Maybe a new party in the future will be in store . . .

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Could be.

. . . and in the mean time you might sleep better.

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Why? Because I let some stranger use half of my vote to determine who will be president of the United States? That's not the sort of thing that makes me sleep better!

Why support something that you are not in agreement with?

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Oh, I won't. I will vote for someone I want as my president.

Best regards,

Doug

Tomorrow we vote for our federal parliamentary representatives and senate members.
It's like fine tuning a rock band. There's always a solid beat in the background; the rest don't matter all that much.
We change prime ministers like rock bands change their guitarists: often.
The chords are standard I 3 5 . It's all very familiar and based on an old tune.
Eventually the song gets back to the same old stuff: tax, pensions, health, education.
It's a good thing we can get back to a bit of smooth jazz when the party is over.

Watching US political antics from here is hilarious. It's worse than X Factor.

For people who claim to be the showcase for the rest of the world you sure don't behave that way.
I've seen 5 year olds at a birthday party with better sense, manners and a grasp of what reality.

Australia sounds like a Butlin's holiday camp, where the patrons are deciding on what to include in the jamboree besides 3-legged races by couples and mud-wrestling.

Votes to take suicide pills by 51% of an electorate, shouldn't be binding on an entire country. But in the UK, that's what happened in the "Brexit" vote and illustrates the foolishness of making important strategic decisions for an entire complex country based on popular vote!

Having an intervening set of elected representatives who will debate, wrangle, cajole, persuade or bribe each other, seems to be a lot more sensible. However, in the USA we have righteous Christian Conservatives in the "Tea Party" who sign up for a long pledge of non-negotiable absolute social antitheses that they all vow to use to prevent birth control, social justice for gays or other aspects of social justice and support. So, I wonder, what's the point of these folk being elected if they are not going to fashion compromises that take into account diverse interests?

The races for the US Presidency are intimidating, expensive and only for super-deluded or altruistic people with exceptional stamina for playing games with promises according to the pulses of the people that they read. So we are left with poetics of personal insult and personal "royalty", as if another Bush or another Clinton inherit some "Crown" but some divine right.

Nevertheless, despite all their obvious failings, the current survivors of the grueling campaign trail, both Clinton and Trump, will be able to steer the vessel ......... and although it will not be as wonderful or "amazing" as they promise, it will also not be as disasterous as so many of us fear. We will not kill terrorists with exactly the same frequency or spew arsenic in our rivers at exactly the same rate, but we will also not starve or blow up the planet!

Hopefully we will grow a tad more tolerant and inclusive and have more smarts in dealing with failed states that slaughter their own people!

Unlike having dictatorships or monarchies, we in democracies have many powerful institutions that counterbalance the power of politicians!

Asher

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

Votes to take suicide pills by 51% of an electorate, shouldn't be binding on an entire country. But in the UK, that's what happened in the "Brexit" vote . . .

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Actually not exactly; it is not really binding.

. . . and illustrates the foolishness of making important strategic decisions for an entire complex country based on popular vote!

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Yes, I seem to recall that about 229 years ago (before my time, albeit slightly) a bunch of guys In Philadelphia had some discussions about that very matter!

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Asher,



Actually not exactly; it is not really binding.

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Doug,

For Britain, however, they are trapped by their own rhetoric of "keeping one's word", as the voters were promised their vote would be decisive. In other word they created a kind of new reality, such as "superman can't withstand Kryptonite" except here it was a "gentleman's word"!

Asher

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

Doug,

For Britain, however, they are trapped by their own rhetoric of "keeping one's word", as the voters were promised their vote would be decisive. In other word they created a kind of new reality, such as "superman can't withstand Kryptonite" except here it was a "gentleman's word"!

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Oh, of course.

Also, I should not probably have stated unequivocally that the "referendum" is "not binding". I am certainly not enough of an expert to assert that.

This is an interesting year, politically, on both sides of the pond, wot?

Best regards,

Doug

In another electoral curiosity, the Constitutional Court of Austria has invalidated the runoff election for president of Austria (said to be a "largely ceremonial" position).

The court essentially ruled that the processes of vote counting in the runoff election were sloppy, and thus the result (which was by a margin of less than one percentage point) could not be relied on. There was no indication that there was anything dishonest about the process.

The court ordered that another runoff election be held.

The winner of the (first) runoff election was Alexander Van der Bellen of the Greens party, considered to be left-leaning.

He narrowly defeated Norbert Hofer of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), a party that has been characterized (these days) as "anti-immigration." He has been described as a "far right" candidate.

It is amazing that the attribute used to characterize a political party varies with the "fright du jour". Perhaps in another election we will read of the FPO as being "anti-vaccine", or "anti parking in front of department stores".

Best regards,

Doug

Fascinating discussion here.

Irrespective of the peculiarities of the democratic system I'm glad I was born into it.

It provides humour and satire for the humorists of the day without persecution and it is still a better option that a coup or a religious autocracy (is that possible?)

I don't mind paying my taxes, although I don't pay any because of my low income, I don't mind the occasional shift in migration policy or sucking up to whomever is deemed important or relevant, and I don't mind a woman running the place.

As long as I can be offered a sausage sandwich at the polling booth by the principal of the school and ask difficult questions of the pollsters (who, by the way, couldn't answer them) I'm a very content man.

Long live democracy for all its faults. It beats the alternative hands down.

Tom dinning said:

Fascinating discussion here.

Irrespective of the peculiarities of the democratic system I'm glad I was born into it.

It provides humour and satire for the humorists of the day without persecution and it is still a better option that a coup or a religious autocracy (is that possible?)

I don't mind paying my taxes, although I don't pay any because of my low income, I don't mind the occasional shift in migration policy or sucking up to whomever is deemed important or relevant, and I don't mind a woman running the place.

As long as I can be offered a sausage sandwich at the polling booth by the principal of the school and ask difficult questions of the pollsters (who, by the way, couldn't answer them) I'm a very content man.

Long live democracy for all its faults. It beats the alternative hands down.

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Tom,

You must maintain your vigor as great times are ahead. Forget "minimal wage", we are now looking at BLS or basic living stipend, so everyone had money to buy essentials of food and clothing from the mega corporations. It will not be considered welfare for the poor, but will support the lifestyle of the richest folk, with little to no fear of insurrections.

Less and less workers are needed but we still need our markets, hence the BLS.

All we need now is for a Donald Trump to get into bed with Bernie Sanders!

Asher

Vigor is it?
Not likely from this position.
I wake to a new day, the possibility of a new government and yet another new prime minister.
How does the world look from here?
The bed is still warm, my back still aches, the dogs still bark, and I still need to fix the veranda light.
It will be hard to tell the difference, politically.
The suits are still dark, the rhetoric is still filled with promises of the future, there will still be pot holes in the roads and insufficient funds to complete current projects.
In August we have a state(territor) election. Same suits, same rhetoric, same pot holes to be filled.

As long as each of us do our best at what we are best at, we can compensate for the inadequacies of those that lead us.

Leaving things to politicians is like leaving the dog in charge of a good walk. At every opportunity we as individuals need to poke a finger at the faces of our leaders and say:
"Do your job and do it well or this finger will finish up in a place that will get your attention"

Good luck with the Trump/ Saunders prodigy

Xx

I must say, Trump seems to be one of those people who contradict the saying: Hate the deed not the man.
He reminds me of a school house bully who wants to be school captain by hook or by crook. He has it bully mates follow him around lying and cajoling their way though the crowd on pure boldness. Power is everything. He feeds promises to his followers because, without them he is just another student, and not a very good one at that.
Eventually the masses begin to hate HIM. They see through him for what he is. They wait their moment and finally corner him in the toilet and flush his face in the bowl while is bully mates have been distracted by a cunning ploy in another place, possibly the offer of free food or a look at Sheila's fanny.

The man is a fool, a dangerous one at that. He's probably psychotic. He will destroy more lives than any war. If the US wants someone to hate, this is the man.

I suspect what's happening in Western democracies is that working class and lower-middle class people now consider middle and upper-middle class people to be 'agents' of upper class people that promote and gain obscenely from free trade and globalization. Moreover, because the so-called expertise of these 'agents' appears more or less deficient on several fronts (e.g., economics, nutrition, politics, climate change) working people no longer believe them trustworthy. Furthermore, the widespread use of social media means that general dissatisfaction with established order is not only apparent to working class people but empowers them toward action that transcends national, governmental and ideological boundaries. I suspect that were Karl Marx alive today, he would consider his ideas about class struggle vindicated in a 21st century context.

Michael_Stones said:

I suspect what's happening in Western democracies is that working class and lower-middle class people now consider middle and upper-middle class people to be 'agents' of upper class people that promote and gain obscenely from free trade and globalization. Moreover, because the so-called expertise of these 'agents' appears more or less deficient on several fronts (e.g., economics, nutrition, politics, climate change) working people no longer believe them trustworthy. Furthermore, the widespread use of social media means that general dissatisfaction with established order is not only apparent to working class people but empowers them toward action that transcends national, governmental and ideological boundaries. I suspect that were Karl Marx alive today, he would consider his ideas about class struggle vindicated in a 21st century context.

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So, Michael,

Let's take this further. Would the "socialist", Bernie Sanders, represent the same working class or student sections, or is it a deifferent demographic and how would Karl describe them?

Asher

Hi, Tom,

An interesting quotation from the recent Reuters article on the situation with regard to the parliamentary elections there in Australia:


Fancy that!

The resident aborigine here (of the Cherokee persuasion, in particular) says, "The fate of appeasers is to be eaten alive by the appeased."

In any case, it's interesting that the vote counters stand down for Sunday. You don't think that's some religious thing, do you?

Naw, more likely just some labo(u)r union thing.

Best regards,

Doug

Hi, Asher,

Asher Kelman said:

All we need now is for a Donald Trump to get into bed with Bernie Sanders!

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An old song tells of a fellow who had a few too many and lay down in the gutter. A pig came by and lay beside him.

The lyrics continue to tell of a lady passing by:

She says, "You can tell a man who boozes
from the company he chooses",
and the pig got up and slowly walked away.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,

An interesting quotation from the recent Reuters article on the situation with regard to the parliamentary elections there in Australia:

Turnbull had some of the highest poll ratings of an Australian leader on record shortly after he snatched the top job in a party coup last year. But that popularity soured as he appeared to bend his centre-right values on issues like climate change and same sex marriage to the right-wing powerbrokers in his party.​

Fancy that!

The resident aborigine here (of the Cherokee persuasion, in particular) says, "The fate of appeasers is to be eaten alive by the appeased."

In any case, it's interesting that the vote counters stand down for Sunday. You don't think that's some religious thing, do you?

Naw, more likely just some labo(u)r union thing.

Best regards,

Doug

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Turnbull was certainly popular in the beginning. Not so now. His popularity as low as it gets for a loser.
As they say: a week is a long time in politics.

I have worked and run polling booths for many years. Most of the decisive voting is done on the night of the election. It's a long night for the poorly payed polling officers. The fist count is for 'yes/no. The second count is for First preference distribution. Usually by that time the result for that electorate is decisive and the parties will concede.
Only when there is a close call will the decision be held over until postal and absentee votes are counted. That can go on for weeks.
It is still possible for a party to concede before the end of the night if the voting is decisive. Its only the close seats that need to be finalised.

As for Sunday, the pay is far too low for working and the government won't pay penalty rates. Its as simple as that.
I do believe its still a hangover from the dreaded christian influence but I'm not complaining. We start work at 6 am and finish about midnight and for that we get about $400 AU. I think a checkout chick gets more. Included is training time(3h) and set up time the evening before(3h). Thats a total of 24h.
Do the maths.
Good thing I have a social conscience.

There is a few AEC officers who work on Sunday to redistribute the postal and absentee votes to their rightful electoral office. I believe they only allow atheists to work.

Tom dinning said:

Good thing I have a social conscience.

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: ) It happens to me too ; )

Tom dinning said:

I believe they only allow atheists to work.

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This is our contribution…

Nicolas Claris said:

: ) It happens to me too ; )



This is our contribution…

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My dear friend Nicolas,

Thanks to the injections into civilizations from the bible, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and it's formulation into law by the struggles of the 4th Estate in France, it's embodiment in the French ideas of the Rights of Man and then it's spread in the laws promulagated by force of arms of Napoleans armies.

Without such clear law, respected each human being as a "citizen" with equal rights, social conscience is a choice. With law we have to respect all others as we are equally human.

Without law, we have a free choice as to who we "recognize" as our legitimate neighbours. I would prefer that social conscience alone would be sufficient to allow for human rights, but it isn't as we are tribal. Worse we believe in various gods and social schemes that make us righteous just by our prayers. However, if the points of reference are independant of our whims and wishes or our particular culture or social context, then the anchor point can only be "universally DEFENDED rights", which we, as in the French Revolution, are willing to risk our treasure and Warriors' blood for.

The mass killings by the Syrian government and by Isis cannot be stopped by peppering here and there with bombs from the air! Allowing Iran to wipe out Assad's enemies, may save us from putting our men on the ground but at what expense to the Sunnis and minorities?

Hence, we cannot be passive to the slaughter in Syria and Iraq. We must be willing to impose by force the Universal Rights it took so many lives to win in the first place.

Eli Weisel just passed away yesterday. He said we cannot be silent or stand by when such evil occurs. Where now are the defenders of humanity if not us?

Neither Bernie nor Hillary get it about "social responsibility" beyond worker's rights for wages and some domestic needs. Neither to the leaders in Europe! Internationally we lack the determination that defeated the nazis and Isis is gobbling up the minds of many more each day and therefore we are allowing more suffering and the erosion of our own freedoms!

Asher

Hi, Tom,

Tom dinning said:

Turnbull was certainly popular in the beginning. Not so now. His popularity as low as it gets for a loser.
As they say: a week is a long time in politics.

I have worked and run polling booths for many years. Most of the decisive voting is done on the night of the election. It's a long night for the poorly payed polling officers. The fist count is for 'yes/no. The second count is for First preference distribution. Usually by that time the result for that electorate is decisive and the parties will concede.
Only when there is a close call will the decision be held over until postal and absentee votes are counted. That can go on for weeks.
It is still possible for a party to concede before the end of the night if the voting is decisive. Its only the close seats that need to be finalised.

As for Sunday, the pay is far too low for working and the government won't pay penalty rates. Its as simple as that.
I do believe its still a hangover from the dreaded christian influence but I'm not complaining. We start work at 6 am and finish about midnight and for that we get about $400 AU. I think a checkout chick gets more. Included is training time(3h) and set up time the evening before(3h). Thats a total of 24h.
Do the maths.
Good thing I have a social conscience.

There is a few AEC officers who work on Sunday to redistribute the postal and absentee votes to their rightful electoral office. I believe they only allow atheists to work.

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Thank you so much for that explanation of the operation, and thank you so much for your service to the democratic process.

I note with interest your mention of a preferential voting system. As you may know, the use of preferential voting in the US is very rare. In some few cities it is used for voting for mayor and for the members of the city council/commission.

The Democratic party in New Mexico, and perhaps in other states as well, uses, for the election of delegates to the party's national convention (where the party's candidate for president of the United States is chosen), an odd (to me, questionable) form of "preferential voting".

Best regards,

Doug