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<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>In your eyes; but that does not necessarily hold for
other people's point of view. For all practical purposes you have become a
single issue person in that you place this issue above all others and give it a
moral imperative; others may not do either. Thus, they will disagree with
you on the issues, their priority, and who is the best to vote for on the whole
over a larger general range of issues. Personally, given the American
system, I believe that voting is irrelevant and merely a ritualized exercise
that most people engage in as an article of faith and optimism in order to
pretend that they are participating in their governance. As such, it is a
spectator sport of sorts, which I believe to be a waste of time and resources.
But just as the notion that voter's can be effective in the system and have
their interests actually represented over those of the corporations and the
establishment personnel is an accepted illusion, so is the notion that the
average American really want to and is willing to do anything but bitch an
illusion. The average American fears change and does not want change if it
is going to cost them anything to achieve it and it does not gain them personal
immediate gratification. We are a "me" country and not a "we"
country. We are a country that is narrow minded and focused on personal
self-interests as individuals and as a country - screw everyone else and other
countries if it means that our needs and desires are not the primary ones to bew
looked after.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt Tahoma">
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">C. G. Estabrook</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, October 16, 2010 9:58 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A
title="mailto:ls1000@live.com CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:ls1000@live.com">Laurie Solomon</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A
title="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</A>
; <A title=kmedina67@gmail.com href="mailto:kmedina67@gmail.com">Karen
Medina</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Series...</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Killing people is the most important thing the Obama
administration is doing.<BR><BR><BR>On 10/16/10 9:25 PM, Laurie Solomon wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid:COL119-DS9925A2BFD1562182CBE45BD590@phx.gbl type="cite">
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.7600.16671">
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>><FONT face="Times New Roman">But it's hard to
understand people who say that they're against the war - and then vote against
a Congressman who is one of the few voting against the war (and for a
dissembling Democrat). Especially >when those people contend, as you do,
that both parties are reactionary.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri><FONT face="Times New Roman">It is not so hard to
understand if they are neither single issue voters nor voters who view
stopping the war as the most important issue over all others as you do.
If they are looking at and balancing the costs and benefits across several
issues or have other issues which are of equal or higher priority than the one
you see as being paramount, then it is quite possible that they will select to
support the candidate who is the lesser of evils on balance across all THEIR
high priority issues or decide to not vote at all if they think that the
persons running for office cannot be trusted with respect to those issues
that THEY deem of priority to them. People tend to act more or less rationally
using "good enough for all my practical purposes at hand" logic
rather than an abstract zero-sum optimizing logic and they tend to act
practically not ideologically with a focus on immediate personal short term
interests.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri><BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt Tahoma">
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: rgb(245,245,245)">
<DIV><B>From:</B> <A title=galliher@illinois.edu
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu" moz-do-not-send="true">C. G. Estabrook</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, October 16, 2010 8:04 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=coreymattson@gmail.com
href="mailto:coreymattson@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true">Corey Mattson</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A
title="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="mailto:Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"
moz-do-not-send="true">Peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</A> ; <A
title=kmedina67@gmail.com href="mailto:kmedina67@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">Karen Medina</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Series...</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>The only way the Obama administration will reverse its war
policy is if it's forced to by a cut-off of funds. That eventually
happened to the Nixon administration in regard to Vietnam and to the Reagan
administration in regard to Central America - admittedly after they'd killed
hundreds of thousands. The Obama administration needs to be treated the
same way.<BR><BR>In each case the growth of votes against the war in Congress
was quite slow. Then as now, the populace was much further left than the
Congress. But it's hard to understand people who say that they're against the
war - and then vote against a Congressman who is one of the few voting against
the war (and for a dissembling Democrat). Especially when those people
contend, as you do, that both parties are reactionary.<BR><BR>And, believe me,
such votes will be noticed. Look at, e.g., Michael Barone's<I> Almanac
of American Politics.</I><BR><BR><BR>On 10/16/10 6:29 PM, Corey Mattson wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid:EEE3ED91-0651-44F3-A9C3-E5E013707FF9@gmail.com
type="cite"><PRE wrap="">I really doubt that the very few anti-war people voting for Johnson would be read as a signal by the government. ...And calling for a vote for a reactionary is disorienting to our allies and potential allies in building a peace movement. Johnson is anti-immigrant, from what I can tell by press releases. Should we strengthen ties with the immigrant rights movement and other working people? I believe we should, which would entail not supporting anti-immigrant, anti-worker politicians.
---Corey
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 16, 2010, at 10:36 AM, "C. G. Estabrook" <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu" moz-do-not-send="true"><galliher@illinois.edu></A> wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">I agree with your contempt for both business parties, but Johnson is actually voting against war funding - one of the few in Congress to do so, and Gill has not promised to do the same. ( I doubt that he would - if per impossibile he were elected, he'd be a safe vote for the administration.) Johnson is worth a vote as a signal to the federal government that there is a growing opposition to its killing people for oil in the Mideast. --CGE
On 10/16/10 9:59 AM, Corey Mattson wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">I think we can all agree that elections won't now end the wars, that it will take a strong anti-war movement. I'm not voting for either Gill or Johnson because they are in business parties that have absolutely no accountability except to their paymasters. In Minnesota, Keith Ellison was an antiwar politician in the actual movement, who promised to vote against war funding, until he got elected and took his orders from Pelosi. It doesn't even matter what they promise.
I agree with those who won't support Johnson. He and his party are not on our side. If Gill were a politician who ran on a working-class ticket, a labor party or something like it on the left, that was accountable to a real party platform, he would get my vote. To his credit, he went against the party establishment supporting single-payer. Here in Blm-Normal, he disagreed publicly with MoveOn supporters in their support for Obama's health insurance reform, saying that it was bad enough to hope that it would not pass. In my view, from his work on single-payer, he counts as a movement activist, explaining his anti-establishment position on this issue. But, again, his running in a party only answering to corporate interests settles it for me.
--- Corey
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 15, 2010, at 9:48 PM, Karen Medina<A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E href="mailto:kmedina67@gmail.com" moz-do-not-send="true"><kmedina67@gmail.com></A> wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">Nevertheless TJ is a reliable anti-war vote.
</PRE></BLOCKQUOTE><PRE wrap="">Oh, Israel's war does not count in The War.
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