I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

i don't know why the democratic party has (had) a reputation for being doves. from WW2 to Vietnam to Afghanistan, democrats are always are the forefront of the killing foreigners industry.

Americans love killing foreigners. Hell, Americans love killing full stop. We're a violent bunch.

Meantime:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-filmmaker-20120914,0,6397127.story

xp WW1 too

People with power in questionably using power shockah.

xp I keep making the mistake of thinking HuffPo is a reliable news source.

i don't know why the democratic party has (had) a reputation for being doves. from WW2 to Vietnam to Afghanistan, democrats are always are the forefront of the killing foreigners industry.

i'll field that. though it's something of a "trade secret", the american democratic party is actually allied with liberal/progressive ideals and voters! these tend to pacifism and a distrust of the military-industrial complex. though democratic presidents have often been just as hawkish as their republican counterparts, this is much less true of the party as a whole.

ooh, a sarcasm detector, that's a real useful invention!

the american democratic party is actually allied with liberal/progressive ideals and voters

i'm gonna let morbz field this one

this is true when "allied with" means "smiles fatuously while paying lip service to"

yeah, if pacifist values don't seem to guide the democratic party's leadership, then i suppose it's fair to wonder whether they really mean anything to the party at all. want to compare this to the republicans' cynical alliance with socially conservative christians, but at least they go to bat for those values.

the ratio of members of congress w/ pacifist values is fairly proportional to the % of americans w/ pacifist values

clearly one needs to be a committed 'pacifist' to object to the u.s.'s openly imperial foreign policy post-1947.

it's all relative, and in america 'let's kill lotsa foreigners...just in case' is m/l the moderate position. the iraq war happened cause the majority of america was alright w/ it happening.

participating in politics to fight violence is like participating in business to fight capitalism.

i don't think the bush admin would have spent eight months barraging the electorate with calumnies about hussein presenting an immediate danger to the u.s. if they were confident about 'the majority of america being alright w/it happening.'

funny how presidents won several major landslide elections by promising to keep us out of war (1916, 1940, 1964), seeing as how americans are such bloodthirsty warmongers and all.

i was using "pacifism" (incorrectly) to describe a clutch of related liberal/progressive values that might be described as "antiwar in a general sense". was shooting for efficiency, but probably just confused the issue.

'lotsa people in the 20th century really didn't want to be drafted' doesn't have a lot to do w/ 'americans in 2012 are mostly cool w/ robots killing people in the middle east'

well, there's also the fairly substantial (if all too often silent) group who oppose this or that war on principle

i'm not so entirely cynical as some of y'all

ya the silent hippie majority never seems to make it to the voting booth either, it's weird

america is much more internationally violent than straight domestic polls would suggest

hearty lols @ conflating liberalism and pacifism

If there's one thing I'm sure we all can agree with, it's that the American populace is heavily comprised of strawmen.

all it takes is a spark

classic contenderizer

anyone still scared?

except for mitt's team, that is?

not especially. Willard is saying things that are pretty explicitly unpresidential.

this is worth like a thousand you-didn't-build-thats

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn98/hiiyah777/wingsye5.jpg

if romney does win though... i mean, what does that say? about people?

Nothing! Absolutely nothing! People have plenty of black friends!

this week is like the "those people" / dean scream combo

tbf ann romney's already done a 'you people'

That was about Latinos though. And apparently they're glad they know how to party.

if romney does win though... i mean, what does that say? about people?

Assuming they've heard Romney's fundraiser speech and agree with its content? I'd argue that it means they're content with watching people who feel that they're entitled to precious commodities like food/shelter/healthcare die in the streets like dogs (except that we'll probably eventually have some human equivalent of animal control so we don't have to expose ourselves to that).

Also that they aren't aware of their own situation - if everyone who doesn't pay income tax AND the Democrats vote for Obama, it'll be a landslide.

election fraud & voter disenfranchisement via Voter ID & various other shit is still the Romney path to the White House and should still strike fear into your heart if you're pulling for the President. There is lots of devious shit in FL, OH, et al, for example this -

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169284/ohio-early-voting-cutbacks-disenfranchise-minority-voters

romney takedown by david brooks today in the nyt would have been great if i didn't want to jump out a window every time i read david brooks.

cuz i can hear his voice when i read his columns and it makes me shiver.

Brooks is Very Sad today.

Yeah, I think Brooks has finally gotten fed up with Mittens. I was surprised to see him unload on him like that.

This is key, I think (one of the reactions quoted by Sullivan):

My initial sense was that this video wouldn’t hurt Romney any more than “bitter clingers” hurt Obama. But “bitter clingers” came in April 2008, which gave Obama a lot more time to recover before Election Day.

Pretty much anything that happens in April is long gone by November. But even if Romney's video is only a story until the first debate, that's about a quarter of the time left until the election.

Felt really good to delete a couple people from FB last night after they posted links to the video and said how great it was to have someone finally speak "honestly" and "tell the truth".

"This hurts me more than it does you, Mom." (Just kidding!)

lol! Actually one was an uncle, but I'm pretty sure he hid me a long time ago.

Really feels (I'm sure to Romney too) like he's lost all control of the campaign narrative. Everything he says now, people are primed to go, "Jesus, did you hear that idiotic thing Romney said?" Of course, he does keep saying idiotic things, but people in presidential campaigns have gotten away with saying idiotic things before. He just can't catch a break -- I think in a lot of ways because he's not in any way a likable guy. Liberals don't like him, conservatives have never liked him, "independents" don't like him, the media as a whole doesn't like him. If he didn't have a terrible economy to run on, he'd be down by 8 to 10 points.

Somebody yesterday pointed out that the media dislikes him already, and that this doesn't affect that one way or the other. Disagree somewhat. There is that mushy part in the middle (CNN an example) that will gravitate to one of two stories: a getting-closer election (preferred choice) or, if not that, a train-wreck. Yesterday points them in the direction of a train-wreck. And with six weeks to go, if you're trying to catch up, having that mushy swath in the middle receptive to the getting-closer story can only help.

i dont think 'the media' really has that much effect on peoples votes at this point