I once had a math/logic instrutor who loved this saying;

[dawgman]

"A difference that makes no difference, is no difference."

Welcome to the world of John Kerry.

Remember that quote if he wins. Jobs will still flood overseas. We will still waste $400,000,000,000 a year on the military. There will be MORE than 43,000,000 uninsured in this country. We will still be losing men and women everyday in Iraq. Greenspan will still spout about sustainable but as yet relatively jobless economic growth. But at least the DOW will continue to climb.

"A difference that makes no difference, is no difference."

[meegbear]

1. Your point caller?

[corporatewhore]

2. ditto hehehe (we are crictising him on issues not sex!!!!)

[redqueen]

3. I might be using that in my sig line for the next 5 years.

What was his or her name? Great quote.

[dawgman]

5. his last name was DeStasio, can't remember the first name.

[THUNDER HANDS]

4. don't forget this fact

The sun will still rise in the East and set in the West.

Damn Kerry and his anti Western sunrise platform!

:mad:

[eileen_d]

6. If that's what you want to believe.

I don't expect Kerry to wave a magic wand and reverse the changes of the past four years. Apparently some people will settle for nothing less.

[dawgman]

7. Last four years she says, har har har.

you haven't been paying attention have you? This has been going on since Nixon. One corporate whore traded in for another when one serves his term or becomes somehow indefensible.

[eileen_d]

9. I realize that it's not just the last four years

but my point is still valid: do you expect a president to wave a magic wand and reverse the trends of the past several decades?

[dawgman]

11. Of course not. However I want my president to fight for ME.

And people like me. The corporations are doing fine its time for someone to represent the people again. How would our country be doing if we trimmed even $100,000,000,000 off of military spending and dumped it into education or healtcare? We would still be outspending our next highest competitor by almost $200,000,000,000, and we could do some noticeable good for once.

NOw imagine if we trimmed 150,000,000,000....

[Straight Shooter]

15. Maybe you don't want to use the phrase "magic wand"

when you're discussing kerry. Might start a whole new thread.

:evilgrin:

[Mairead]

17. Eileen, we *need* nothing less!

Reversing the changes of the past four years is not an option if we want to keep going as anything resembling a democracy. The guy we elect must do it!

[w4rma]

8. I think that Kerry supports fair-trade, not free trade so that is a change

I know that Kerry supports an expantion of health care to more insured and may support universal health care.

Maybe some long time Kerry folks can better explain/confirm/deny, with quotes, what my understanding of some of his positions are.

[damnyankee2601]

10. So would you rather have Bush appoint...

The next 4 Supreme Court Justices?

There is a HUGE difference between ANY democrat (except Zell Miller) and the Republican/Baathists currently in power. Specifically:

They don't want to regulate your personal life. Just ask any homosexual how important that is.

[dawgman]

12. If you say so....I just don't know how much different it will be in the

end.

[Rich Hunt]

13. hunh?

Who said they were gonna vote for Bush?

[Cheswick2.0]

19. bush or kerry is our only choice?

I don't think so

[Johnyawl]

14. There are none so blind, as those who refuse to see

John Ashcroft
Donald Rumsfeld
Wolfowitz
Perle
Colin Powell
Thomas Pickering

No Difference?

[Mairead]

16. One of my psych profs had a similar saying about

how much 'statistical significance' means in the real world:

'If you can't see the significance with your naked eye, there is no significance'.

[Old and In the Way]

24. So you've seen no significance between the Clinton and Bush administration

correct?

Certainly, if you believe that, then you won't see any significant change when Kerry takes over.

[Mairead]

35. "you won't see any significant change when Kerry takes over"

Why do you think the prospect scares me so?

Everyone since Nixon has left us worse off. We have no wiggle room left. We are already metaphorically eating our seed corn. Kerry's stated policies, his memberships in the DLC and PPI, and his recent voting record together paint a picture of someone who should not be President of the United States because he lacks both the virtuous courage and the vision we need in that office right now.

But I don't expect you to believe me, so damit basta.

[Cheswick2.0]

18. +1 -1

I agree

[oasis]

20. I remember Nader saying something similar throughout the 2000 elections.

deja vous?

[HuckleB]

29. Yup. The difference is real and quite substantial.

[oasis]

32. If Bush gets back in, we'll never know for sure.

[HuckleB]

33. Well, I'm sure.

The weight of the evidence is quite overwhelming.

[northzax]

21. of course

as Ralph Nader pointed out in 2000, there is no difference between the Parties. Al Gore, George Bush, no difference. Just let me run off and explain that to the families of the soldiers killed in Iraq. be right back.

[dawgman]

22. A kinder gentler corporate whore is still a coporate whore.

And before you go on about how he is on the low end of corporate payouts just remember that ANYONE affiliated with the DLC is beholden to corporate special interests. The DLC also has a PNAC signer as one of its mouthpieces.

And Kerry has said that he will still try to maintain American World Dominance. He will just employ a kinder gentler approach to it. So I guess we will have kinder gentler corporations who employ kinder gentler slave masters in there kinder gentler sweatshops that are protected by kinder gentler american poor people...er...soldiers and kinder gentler AND smarter bombs. USA USA USA

FUCK THAT I WANT MORE. So fuckin' sue me.

[northzax]

30. I'm happy you want more

but how are you planning to achieve that? Every candidate will attempt to maintain US dominance, anyone who says they are not really interested in US dominance is either: unqualified for the job, since they don't understand the way the world works, or useless. Of course, there are different versions of US dominance, and I would argue that Bush's version is unsustainable, while the one Kerry brings to the table is more sustainable. Our military dominance comes from our economic and technical dominance, without the latter, we don't have the former.

[dawgman]

34. Bullshit, our economic dominance is due to our military.

Four hundred billion dollars pumped annually into our economy by the DD.
My area of the country (seattle) would lose one of its biggest businesses if it weren't for that defense spending. The loss of Boeing, some feel, would destroy this region's economy. Boeing couldn't survive without defense contracts.

Whenever US poor people...er...soldiers go to battle for unnamed "US interests" they go to die and kill for US corporations, no more no less. They fight and die for our economy. It ain't even our real economy these days, it's the stock market.

Wonderful. Our economy will be outstripped by China and the EU in the next decade or so...unless we can control the world capital of OIL. That is what they mean when they say US dominance. Have fun supporting that policy.

[DerekG]

23. How many children did the Clinton administration kill?

The rough estimate in Iraq is 500,000; at least a thousand in Yugoslavia; several thousand in Columbia...

Bill Clinton presided over policies of mass murder.

George W. Bush continues to preside over policies of mass murder.

Does it matter if the man is a Democrat or Republican?

This might sound a tad absolutist to some, but I intend to remind those who think Clinton gave us 8 years of "peace and prosperity" of some harsh realities.

[oasis]

25. Thanks for your input, but "peace and prosperity" is the Clinton legacy.

And rightly so.

[northzax]

27. 'policies of mass murder'

yes, children die every day in thei world. it sucks, but it's reality. And can we stop it all? not a chance.

For the record, I have never claimed that Bill Clinton was infallaible, lord knows he wasn't.

please explain how your candidate, or anyone else, would have stopped all children from dying, all over the world. Some problems are intractable, some we inherit from the past, but no President can stop the civil war in Colombia. No president could have stopped the civil war tht tore the former yugoslavia to pieces, no President could have stopped the faminies in North Korea, or the use of terror to kill children and innocents. But let's remember what he did do. He forced, by sheer will, the warring factions in Ireland to listen to the Majority of the population and find peace. He was well on the way to forcing the extremists in the Israeli Occupied territories to deal with each other. His leadership helped prevent Indonesia from spiralling into Civil War after the crash of 1997-1998.

Name one conflict that George Bush has alleviated or prevented from escalating. Since he took office, all those situations, with the notable exception of Ireland, are WORSE, not better. North Korea is more unstable, thanks to Bush's poolicies. Iraq is more unstable, Colombia is unheard of. Indonesia has sunk into a repeating current of repression and violence. and don't get me started on the Occupied Territories, I think we all know about that. Shall we talk domestic policy, or can we agree that Bush is an awful President? Can we agree that the world is significantly WORSE off for having George Bush in the most powerful seat for the past three-odd years. Worse off for his policies and decisions. Would it be perfect with Al Gore as President? not a chance, we still would have gone ot war in Afganistan, since 9/11 would still have happened. We'd still have gaping holes in the economy leading from that incident and the dot-com collapse. But would we be better off? you have to answer that for yourself, but I say yes.

I don't believe in the marxist vision of a utopia rising from the ashes of capitalism. It ain't gonna happen. I will be content with margianally improving things every year, always pushing for better things. Swinging for the fences is dramatic, and makes heroes out of people, but in crunch time, the winners are those who it single after single.
Effective change is incremental, it may be unsatisfying, but in the long term, it works.

[mdmc]

26. A dem in charge, at least

:kick:

[HuckleB]

28. Ever heard of taking care of the environment?

Kerry has. Bush hasn't.

He's last on my list for the nomination, well, besides Lieberman, of course. Still, your quote doesn't pass the muster here. Anyone who thinks we would be in the same spot we are now, if Kerry had been president since January 2001, really doesn't understand the definition of the word difference, IMO.

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[MoonRiver]

36. There was a HUGE difference between Clinton and *

I predict an even bigger one between Kerry and *. I can't comprehend how anybody could link these two together. It's truly mindboggling.

[Moderator]

37. Locking.....

1. If you start a thread in this forum, you must present your opinion in a manner that is not inflammatory, which respects differences in opinion, and which is likely to lead to respectful discussion rather than flaming. The moderators have the sole authority to decide whether a thread topic is inflammatory. Extremely inflammatory or inappropriate topics will be deleted rather than locked, and the thread's author will receive a warning.



DU Moderator