Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern paid $50 to attend a public event in New York City last week at which Gen. David Petraeus was speaking. McGovern planned to question Petraeus the way he questioned former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2006 about the Bush administration lies about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for going to war with Iraq after 9/11. Instead, McGovern was arrested and taken to a lock-up overnight by New York Police to prevent him from attending the event. Welcome to the New America. McGovern writes here at Consortium News about how he believes the national security state learned he was planning to attend the event.
Who's behind all of this, Gary?
ReplyDeleteReally behind it, not stupid tools like the NYPD.
Who runs CFR? Who is given the power to order NYPD into action to arrest political dissidents?
Who has the power to give Petraeus that featherbed at Columbia?
It's O.K. Things will be different under McConnell and the Republicans, right?
It's irrelevant to discuss Republican versus Democrat; both parties are equal advocates for the national security state. You can't get elected to any significant public office in this country unless you buy into it.
ReplyDeleteIs the security state behind it all, or is the security state a means the real power uses to get what they want?
ReplyDeleteMoney lets them elect who they want, and our election system is easily manipulated by money.
Imagine every election having six or seven candidates for every office and with the ballot having no party affiliation beside the candidates.
It gets pretty hard to run an effective negative campaign in such a system. In a two-party system, however, a negative ad against X directly benefits Y.
We need to break the two-party system.
The IPS school board election shows how easy it is for outside interests to purchase every single seat on the school board in crowded races with no party affiliation next to the candidate's names so that's not the answer.
ReplyDeleteIf you think that logic holds, have it your way.
ReplyDeleteNow the mere thought of opposition to the Wall Street-Security-Military-Industrial Complex is a crime.
ReplyDeleteMore US Troops being sent to Iraq. Billions were spent on outfitting and training the Iraqi Army, and they turned tail and ran from ISIS. The most recent Election avoided the issue of our failed Middle East Policy entirely.
Gary is right...
ReplyDeleteLook across the pond (UK) at their now four party system (plus a couple minor ones) - The Tories (Conservative Party, though interpretation of conservative varies widely), the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and UK Independence Party (UKIP) - the ones who want to tell the EU to feck off. Plus there's Scottish Nationalist Party and others.
Even north of our northern border there's more than two parties - Tories, Labour, the Quebecers, and New Democrats.
In these cases usually two or more of the parties gang up on a third.
And for your idea of having multiple candidates on the ballot at once in a general election - Ask Louisiana how that's working out for them
How does the system get fixed? Attempts at taking money out of the equation gets slapped down real quick by courts citing the 1st Amendment. Armed revolts? I think history has shown armed revolts leave you with leadership that's worse than where you started - with very few exceptions (USA being one of the exceptions)
Hailstone:
ReplyDeleteThose countries you mentioned do not have STV. Find an example that holds to the proposed scenario.