[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On

Sun Sep 2 22:29:06 UTC 2012

A useful summary most of this, but what caught my eye was the assertion:

> Obama is building a wave of 33 nuclear plants across the country, the first two in mostly black and poor communities of Georgia and South Carolina where leaky existing nukes are causing cancer epidemics. The people know these things are myths.
> 

It would be useful to know what the sources are for these assertions, and most especially that there are cancer epidemics around the existing nukes.  This is demagogy of the most disreputable sort, intellectually dishonest. It tends to discredit the writer and that for which he stands. 

 From wikipedia:

Many license applications filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for proposed new reactors have been suspended or cancelled.[92][93] As of October 2011, plans for about 30 new reactors in the United States have been "whittled down to just four, despite the promise of large subsidies and President Barack Obama’s support of nuclear power, which he reaffirmed after Fukushima".[94] The only reactor currently under construction in America, at Watts Bar, Tennessee, was begun in 1973 and may be completed in 2012.[95][96] Matthew Wald from the New York Times has reported that "the nuclear renaissance is looking small and slow".[97]

--mkb

On Sep 2, 2012, at 4:39 PM, Luis Damián Reyes Rodríguez wrote:

> Wouldn't it be nice to live in a country where every four years you were not told that there is no alternative? (sure, Obama is bad, but look at Romney!)
> It is a vicious circle! The only way to get out of it is by breaking it! i.e. stop supporting the lesser evil and build something independent from Dems and Reps! 
> Sure, it will take time... The more urgent it is to start now!
> Here's what folks at the Black Agenda Report have to say:
> http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/closer-you-think-top-15-things-romney-and-obama-agree
> 
> Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On
> 
> Wed, 08/29/2012 - 13:37 — Bruce A. Dixon
> Republicans |
> Democrats |
> 2012 presidential campaign
> Printer-friendly version
> 
> by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
> 
> Republicans and Democrats, like Romney and Obama are of one mind on many more things than they disagree about. From war and empire to their policies on Big Ag, Big Energy, “clean coal and safe nuclear power,” and the war on drugs their areas of agreement are vast and troubling, and perhaps far more important than the rhetorical and stylistic differences highlighted by US political campaigns.
> 
> Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On
> 
> by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
> 
> Too much agreement between Republicans and Democrats has always been bad news for those at the bottom of America's class and racial totem poles.
> 
> Back in 1875, Frederick Douglass observed that it took a war among the whites to free his people from slavery.  What then, he wondered, would an era of peace among the whites bring us? He already knew the answer. Louisiana had its Colfax Massacre two years earlier. A wave of thousands upon thousands of terroristic bombings, shootings, mutilations, murders and threats had driven African Americans from courthouses, city halls, legislatures, from their own farms, businesses and private properties and from the voting rolls across the South. They didn't get the vote back for 80 years, and they never did get the land back. But none of that mattered because on the broad and important questions of those days there was at last peace between white Republicans and white Democrats --- squabbles around the edges about who'd get elected, but wide agreement on the rules of the game.
> 
> Like Douglass, the shallow talking heads who cover the 2012 presidential campaign on corporate media have  noticed out loud the remarkable absence of disagreement between Republican and Democratic candidates on many matters. They usually mention what the establishment likes to call “foreign policy.” But the list of things Republicans and Democrat presidential candidates agree on, from coddling Wall Street speculators, protecting mortgage fraudsters and corporate wrongdoers to preventing Medicare For All to so-called “foreign policy,” “free trade,” “the deficit” “clean coal and safe nuclear power” and “entitlement reform,” is clearly longer and more important than the few points of mostly race and style, upon which they disagree.
> 
> 
> 
> 15
> 
> Although unemployment is the highest it's been since the Great Depression, the federal government should NOT enact any sort of WPA-style program to put millions of people back to work. Under Democrat Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, Depression-era unemployment was tackled head on by direct federal hiring to dig subways, build roads, schools, parks, sewers, recreational facilities and public buildings. Oblivious of this history, Democrat Barack Obama maintains that only the private sector can or should create jobs.
> 
> 14
> 
> Medicare, Medicaid and social security are “entitlements” that need to be cut to relieve what they call “the deficit.” Republicans have been on record for this since forever, though they claim not to want to mess with the Medicare people already over 65 are getting. One of the first acts of the Obama presidency was to appoint a bipartisan panel stacked with “deficit hawks” like Republican Allan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles to recommend raising retirement ages and cutting back Medicaid, Medicare and social security, and pass a law directing Congress to have an up or down no-amendments vote on its recommendations. Fortunately the “cat food commission”, as it was called, was deadlocked and offered none. But Obama and top Democrats, most recently House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi continue to express their readiness for some kind of “grand compromise” with Republicans on this issue.
> 
> 13
> 
> Climate change treaties and negotiations that might lead to them should be avoided at all costs. The differences between them are only style. Democrats admit that climate change exists and is man-made, Republicans say it's a myth. But both ignored the Kyoto protocol and Obama like Bush before him, has worked tirelessly to delay, derail and boycott any actual talks that might lead to constructive international climate change agreements.
> 
> 12
> 
> NAFTA was such a great thing it really should be extended to Central and South America and the entire Pacific rim. Again, there are differences in style. On the 2008 campaign trail, Obama sometimes mumbled about renegotiating parts of NAFTA, and such. But even before the primaries were done, press reports had him assuring the Canadian government this was only campaign rhetoric, raw meat for the rubes. In four years he has pushed NAFTA-like “free trade” corporate rights agreements with South Korea, most of Central America and is now secretly hammering out something called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
> 
> 11
> 
> Banksters and Wall Street speculators deserve their bailouts and protection from criminal liability, but underwater and foreclosed homeowners deserve nothing. Well, maybe not exactly nothing. Republicans think underwater homeowners deserve blame for forcing banksters to offer millions of fraudulent high-interest loans were then re-sold to investors around the world. Democrats think underwater homeowners deserve empty promises of help that never quite arrives for most of the foreclosed, the about-to-be foreclosed, their families and communities. But both agree on free money for banksters and speculators but no moratorium on foreclosures and no criminal investigations of mortgage and securities fraud.
> 
> 10
> 
> Palestinians should be occupied, dispossessed and ignored. Iran should be starved and threatened from all sides. Cuba should be embargoed, and Americans prohibited from going there to see what its people have done in a half century free of Yankee rule. Black and brown babies and their parents, relatives and neighbors should be bombed with drones in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and similar places. The politicians and corporate commentators have a misleading name for this. They call it “foreign policy.” The realistic term for it is global empire.
> 
> 9
> 
> Africa should be militarized, destabilized, plundered and where necessary, invaded by proxy armies like those of Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi or Kenya, or directly by Western air and ground forces, as in Libya. President Georgia Bush announced the formation of AFRICOM, the US military command for the continent which has officially swallowed all US civilian diplomatic presence. But only a black US president, even under the cover of “humanitarian war” could have invaded an African nation and openly dispatched special forces to Central Africa.
> 
> 8
> 
> US Presidents can kidnap citizens of their own or any nation on earth from anyplace on the planet for  torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial or murder them and neighboring family and bystanders at will. To be perfectly fair, there are distinctions between Republicans and Democrats here that don't amount to differences. Republicans Cheney and Bush got their lawyers to say these things were OK and did them. Democrat Obama got Congress to enact “laws” giving these acts a veneer of fake legality, something a Republican probably could not have done.
> 
> 7
> 
> Oil and energy companies, and other mega-polluters must be freed to drill offshore almost everywhere, and permitted to poison land and watersheds with fracking to achieve “energy independence”. The Republicans say “drill baby drill” but it seems only Democrats can chill out enough supposed “environmentalists” to make this happen. Obama campaigned on restricting offshore drilling four years ago, and reversed himself just before the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. The White House cooperated with BP in lying to the public about the extent of the disaster and has shielded BO from paying anything like the value of actual damages incurred to livelihoods, human lives and the environment.
> 
> 6
> 
> The FCC should not and must not regulate telecoms to ensure that poor and rural communities have access to internet, or to guarantee network neutrality. Republicans have always been in favor of digital redlining, against network neutrality. Barack Obama claimed on the campaign trail he'd take a back seat to  nobody in guaranteeing network neutrality. But he appointed as FCC chair a man who helped write the infamous Telecommunications Act of 1995, which gave away the government-built internet backbone to a handful of immensely powerful telecoms like AT&T and Comcast, and flatly reversed himself on network neutrality. The Department of Justice was forced to stop the ATT-T-Mobile merger by a storm of public outrage, but approved the Comcast-NBC deal.
> 
> 5
> 
> Of course there really ARE such things as “clean coal” and “safe nuclear energy”. Again these are things Republicans have always pretended to believe. At the 2008 Democratic convention Democrat Barack Obama joined them, declaring he intended to be the president of “clean coal and safe nuclear energy.” Obama is building a wave of 33 nuclear plants across the country, the first two in mostly black and poor communities of Georgia and South Carolina where leaky existing nukes are causing cancer epidemics. The people know these things are myths. But Republican and Democratic candidates for office, all the way down to state and county officials seem not to.
> 
> 4
> 
> Immigrants must be jailed and deported in record numbers. To be really fair, one should note that on this issue Republicans talk a mean game about sending them all back and jailing tens or hundreds of thousands along the way. But only President Obama has walked the walk, deporting over a million immigrants in his term in office, often with little or no due process and after housing many for months in atrocious privatized immigration prisons.
> 
> 3
> 
> No Medicare For All. Forget about it eliminating the Medicare age requirement so that all Americans would qualify.. Republicans never wanted Medicare even for seniors, let alone everybody. Six or seven years ago Illinois State Senator Obama was telling audiences that if they elected Democrats to Congress, the Senate and the White House, they'd get single payer health care. But once in office he excluded Medicare for All from the proposals on the table, and enacted a national version of Massachusetts RomneyCare, requiring everybody to purchase private health insurance or be penalized.
> 
> 2
> 
> No minimum wage increases for you, no right to form a union, no right to negotiate or strike if you already have a union, and no enforcement or reform of existing labor laws. Again, Republicans have always opposed minimum wage laws. Obama promised to boost the minimum wage his first two years in office, while he still had majorities in the House and Senate. But he didn't do this, or pass legislation beefing up the right to organize unions, which has been eroded under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.
> 
> 1
> 
> The 40 year war on drugs must continue, and even mention of the prison state is unthinkable. There are 2.3 million people in US prisons and jails today, a per capita total that beats the world. Politicians of both parties wag their fingers in multiple directions. But as Michelle Alexander points out, if the US prison population were rolled back to say, only 1 million, the level it was about 1980, this would mean one million jobs, as contractors, sheriffs, cops, bailiffs, judges and functionaries of all kinds would have to go out and find real jobs.
> 
> The rabbit hole goes still deeper. We didn't have to stop at these fifteen points of Democrat-Republican agreement, but you get the idea. Just as in Frederick Douglass's day, the more Democrats and Republicans agree, the worse it is for the rest of us.
> 
> There was a time when black America had its own principles, and formed the immovable leftmost rock of the American polity. But in the 21st century, that rock has been dissolved by a tide of corporate money. With the rise of a cohort of black corporate Democrats and a right wing black Democrat in the White House there is no longer even any vaguely leftish influence on Democratic party politics. The House Progressive Caucus is the biggest in Congress, with over seventy members, but is powerless and irrelevant. Except for stylistic flourishes, the music they listen to and the color of some faces, the differences between Republicans and Democrats seem to exist mostly in political marketing campaigns and inside our own heads.
> 
> Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached via this site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Germaine Light <lightport at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I admit I have not been to Occupy demos since last October, but I have been to almost every labor protest & event that I possibly can & sometimes one has to make choices re limited time.  My heart is there with occupy still and I am VERY active in this community!
> And of course anyone has the right to protest anything!  But I think I have earned a voice in this conversation!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> Germaine 
> 
> On Sep 1, 2012, at 6:05 PM, Chris Goodrow <c_goodrow at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I'm just curious, but the people who are opposed to the focus of a protest? Are these people who actually participate in these protests?
>> 
>> How many civilians died in drone strikes this year? How many Americans were targeted as enemy combatants and killed in the past two years?
>> 
>> Chris
>> (217) 898-5039
>> 
>> 
>> On Sep 1, 2012, at 17:55, "Gregg Gordon" <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> So how many Americans died in Iraq this week?  And how's the missile shield in eastern Europe coming (to cite just two significant differences with the Bush Administration)?
>>> 
>>> Look -- I'm not saying give anyone a pass on anything.  I'm saying make your point strategically and intelligently.  It's likely to improve your effectiveness.  
>>> 
>>> Frankly, I don't think there's anything a handful of people in C-U are going to do in the next two months that will make an iota's difference to the outcome of the election or the future of Bradley Manning.  I would guess 95% of the people who drive by any such demonstration will have no idea who Bradley Manning is, and there's nothing you can put on a placard that will inform them.  It won't even be covered by the local newspaper.  So in that respect, I don't care, but the larger point is worth considering.  Do we do these things to fulfill a sense of righteous indignation, or are we trying to have an impact on future events?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net>
>>> To: Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> 
>>> Cc: Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com>; Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; ocCUpy <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>; Peace <peace at anti-war.net> 
>>> Sent: Saturday, September 1, 2012 10:23 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [OccupyCU] [Peace-discuss] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?
>>> 
>>> It's important to assess how important the difference it makes is. The answer seems to be, not much.
>>>  
>>> Obama - although he campaigned against them - followed Bush's economic and military polices, if in a more brutal and efficient fashion.
>>> 
>>> That may be some slight reason to vote against him, but it's certainly not a reason to support him.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sep 1, 2012, at 10:15 AM, Gregg Gordon <ggregg79 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I find it mind-boggling that anyone who lived through the years 2000-2008 really believes "it makes no difference."
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> From: C. G. Estabrook <cge at shout.net>
>>>> To: Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> 
>>>> Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; ocCUpy <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>; Peace <peace at anti-war.net> 
>>>> Sent: Saturday, September 1, 2012 10:10 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [OccupyCU] [Peace-discuss] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?
>>>> 
>>>> I think it's wrong to give Obama a pass on Bradley Manning and hold off on condemning his crimes - from the suppression of WikiLeaks to the murders of Americans and others - for ostensible fear of a candidate (Romney) whose positions on economic and military matters are inherently identical to those of the administration. 
>>>> 
>>>> "Voting for reform-minded candidates should take about five minutes, and then we go back to the important work on the ground to change the conditions in which the mostly farcical election process proceeds" [Chomsky]. --CGE
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Sep 1, 2012, at 1:20 AM, Jenifer Cartwright <jencart13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I'm guessing you guys haven't been listening to the Repub Convention speeches, but Romney et al are  FAR, FAR, FAR worse than Obama et al... So how 'bout we save our protests until AFTER the election, and use our energy defeating the LOTS WORSE evils??? It won't significantly affect YOUR lives if the Dems are defeated, but it will be devastating to MILLIONS across the US and the world.
>>>>> 
>>>>> --- On Fri, 8/31/12, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> From: Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com>
>>>>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] Farmer's Market and Demonstration on Saturday; and, another on Sept. 6th for Bradley Manning on eve of Obama's speech?
>>>>> To: "Peace" <peace at anti-war.net>, "Peace Discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>, "ocCUpy" <occupycu at lists.chambana.net>
>>>>> Date: Friday, August 31, 2012, 11:26 AM
>>>>> 
>>>>> The wars go on despite the weather and so shall we (at least we'll try).
>>>>> 
>>>>> Expect AWARE and CUCPJ at the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning, 8-noon.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And, from 2-4, the AWARE+OccupyCU demonstration will be at its usual first-Saturday site,
>>>>> 
>>>>>    Main and Neil, downtown Champaign
>>>>>    2-4 PM Saturday, Sept. 1st
>>>>> 
>>>>> If it turns into a real downpour, we'll retire somewhere nearby for lunch.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> There's also a nationally-coordinated suggestion for groups to hold demonstrations on *Thursday, September 6th*, in support of Bradley Manning --
>>>>> 
>>>>>     "Show Obama that Bradley Manning is our hero"
>>>>> 
>>>>> Why the 6th?  That's the date of Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC.
>>>>> 
>>>>> To make a definite *proposal*, how about:
>>>>> 
>>>>>    (proposed) Demonstration in support of accused whistleblower Bradley Manning
>>>>>    5:00PM Thursday, Sept. 6th
>>>>>    Urbana Veterans' Memorial
>>>>>        (that's Broadway and Main, or, the NW corner of the block where the county courthouse is)
>>>>> 
>>>>> What do people think?   (Could also make sense to complain more broadly about Obama's unfulfilled promise as a peace, civil liberties, etc. candidate from four years ago.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> If you like the idea *and* think you can be there for at least part of 5-6PM, please write back (either to peace-discuss at anti-war.net or to occupyCU or to me, but not to the peace list please).
>>>>> 
>>>>> If we have at least, say, five people who believe they can do this, then let's go for it.  Meanwhile let's consider Sept. 6th as still tentative.
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>>>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> OccupyCU mailing list
>>>>> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net
>>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Peace mailing list
>>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net
>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> OccupyCU mailing list
>>> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net
>>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu
>> _______________________________________________
>> OccupyCU mailing list
>> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net
>> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu
> 
> _______________________________________________
> OccupyCU mailing list
> OccupyCU at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/occupycu
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Damián.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peace mailing list
> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20120902/21d6181a/attachment-0001.html>