Schwarzeneggar?

[ibe98765]

Ha, this is funny!

Democrat Lockyer Voted for SchwarzeneggerOct 18, 10:44 PM (ET)BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Attorney General Bill Lockyer, often mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for California governor in 2006, said Saturday he voted for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in this month's recall election."It was the first time I ever voted for a Republican in my life," Lockyer said during a speech at the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. "What Arnold Schwarzenegger represented for me was hope, optimism and change, and I want that."Lockyer said he voted against the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, but marked his ballot in favor of the Republican actor. Davis lost and Schwarzenegger won, and the actor is set to become governor once the results are declared official, probably next month.Lockyer is a liberal Democrat who was elected attorney general in 1998. Before that he spent 25 years in the California Legislature, where he was a frequent opponent of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who led Schwarzenegger's campaign.Asked Saturday if he plans to run for governor in three years, when Schwarzenegger would be up for re-election if he chooses to seek a second term, Lockyer insisted he has not thought that far ahead.After his speech, Lockyer also took a swipe at Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only major Democrat who ran as a replacement for Davis if the governor were recalled.Asked why he didn't vote for his fellow Democrat, Lockyer said, "You know the people in your profession really well. You know who works hard and who doesn't. Cops know that about cops. Doctors know that about doctors. I know that about politicians."

Speaking about Bustmante, this is a guy with a 6 figure income who gave a measely $105 to charity as noted on his last public tax return!

[Cluttermagnet]

Ha, this is funny!

Democrat Lockyer Voted for SchwarzeneggerOct 18, 10:44 PM (ET)"It was the first time I ever voted for a Republican in my life," Lockyer said during a speech at the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. "What Arnold Schwarzenegger represented for me was hope, optimism and change, and I want that."

Yep. Hope, optimism, and change. Good luck! While it is certainly true that politics attracts some of the very worst specimens of humanity, I firmly believe that elections always offer at least an opportunity to choose between the lesser of two evils. That Californians chose a 'pig in a poke' over a pig is most telling. Trouble is, you don't know what is in the bag yet. Well, let's all just wait and see how it has gone, about a year from now. At that point, we are heavily into election fervor. The outcome of election 2004 may indicate that the CA recall was significant in national politics, or it may not.That you would choose an amateur who clearly does not have any significant political experience or the usual prerequisites for effective governance, you are clearly saying that governing by committee is OK with you. You will end up with some sort of (roughly) triumvirate, 'power behind the throne' sort of situation that parallels US governance at the national level today- with your own state level Carl Rove/ Dick Cheney/ Condoleza Rice comedy team really calling most or all of the shots and the electee acting them out convincingly for the public. The governor does have 'command authority', but others do a lot of his thinking for him and thereby exert undue influence. It is a situation of governance by the unelected. This sort of scenario has made for a politically disasterous situation at the national level, with one of the most extreme, right wing, scortched earth admins in at least the last century firmly in power and ****-bent on 'changing everything' in the brief time it has sway.. An admin biased so far right it is catching flack now from more moderate pols in the same party. It is actually embarrassing those moderates. An admin so contemptuous of essential church- state separation as wisely established by the country's founders that it has players who reject entire scientific fields with proven track records and demonstrated efficacy. An admin so inept and imperialistic it produces noteworthy defections such as that of Senator Jeffers, who resigned from the Republican party and became an independent. An admin which is so over-the-top, shamelessly pro-business (anti-consumer/ anti-environment) it will create one Enron after another, bring the economy to its knees, and earn the almost universal condemnation of other nations for its arrogant, foolhardy actions (or inaction) in general. The gap between campaign promises and reality has been particularly noteworthy during this term. This sort of thing is what you Californians want for yourselves? It's out of your hands now until the next election. You just wrote Arnold & Company a blank check.

[ibe98765]

I agree with your statements about the Bush administration. However, that doesn't mean that California will follow a similar pattern. Just because we chose a Republican Governor, doesn't mean that in 2004, we will vote automatically to rubber-stamp another Bush presidential term. Unless Bush clears up the Iraq situation, stops invading other counties whenever him & his team has the whim, puts a tight leash on Ashcrof, revives the economy and does something to create new jobs for the nearly 3 million people that have lost jobs during this administration, it is my opinion that he will have a tough hill to climb.Remember, Schwarzenegger is a MODERATE Republican who was a successful businessman. He wasn't a career politician. Also, his wife is a Democrat and has ties to the Kennedy family. I believe that it is this combination which allowed him to win. A straight-line, conservative Republican politician McClintock, could never have won this election.As to influence, it is a rare high-level politician who makes all his/her own decisions alone. In fact, a person who did so would be called by another name - Tyrant. Decisions are rarely made in a vacuum. Like any big business, the head person gets a lot of input from the people on their staff and rto be successful, has to recognize that there are many constituencies to balance.Since Schwarzenegger cannot run for a higher office, he has nothing further to gain by toeing a partisan line. He can be his own man. Hopefully, he will use this opportunity to attempt to not only straighten out the financial, but also the structual mess that Californian's have created for ourselves over the years. Choices need to be made that are for the overall good of the entire state, not just a particular ideology or special interest. And with luck, he will weasel some bucks out of George Bush before he tries to squander everything we have on Iraq.Here's a story on Schwarzenegger and how he holds to his beliefs instead of kow-towing to political expediency.http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=1...mnist_ferguson#

[Peachy]

Heh heh,It's so funny hearing you guys talk about democracy as if voting once every four years is democratic. To me, democracy means each and every citizen has the opportunity to participate and have their voices heard in political forums, ideally at the most local level. This political arena by all rights in order to claim democratic legitimacy must be grounded at the municipal level. Anything else is merely statecraft. What we have in the Euro-American political tradition is not really democracy but republicanism. Aren't they the same you say? Hmm. That's like the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics calling themselves Communists. Republics are neither democratic or communistic: they are oligarchies, plain and simple. Heck, in the U.S. you have an "oiligarchy" for pete's sake.In Canada we have an oligarchy of wealthy business people and bankers centered mainly in Toronto and Montreal, which pisses off the provinical oiligarchs in Edmonton and Calgary so much so that 16 years ago they created a second, more right-wing conservative political party. Their fortunes have not resulted in them achieving any real political power. Now, the biggest news up here (which probably made barely a ripple down south) is that the remnants of the original conservative party, the Progressive Conservatives (built by Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first Prime Minister), and the Republican-styled Canadian Alliance (nee Reform Party of Canada) have decided in principle to merge into a united right, 10 years after on and off negotiations were begun to reunite the original PC-Reform split. Think ex-spouses trying to reconcile and you get the picture. Meanwhile, their sworn enemy, the ruling Liberal Party of Canada watches with bemusement as their new leader and soon to be new Prime Minister of Canada prepares for his coronation next month. Of course he will have to wait till next February before he can be called the new Prime Minister as the current one said he ain't leavin' till 2004.Now, to be fair to the oligarchs, they did let Pierre Trudeau lead the Liberal Party and the Canadian electorate made him Prime Minister and all he did was have the chutzpah to repatriate our constitution from the Brits, give us a charter of Rights and Freedoms (which really pisses off the Western oiligarchs because it makes it difficult for them to squash the rights of minorities), give the finger, literally, to his critics (and get away with it!), pirouette behind the Queen of England, and ran up a marvellous government deficit. Hey 4 out of 5 isn't bad! And he seemed totally cool to my 9 year-old head in the mid-70s; hey, you gotta respect the guy for not blowing his gasket when all the country's media was having a frenzy reporting on the antics of his wife while she ran off smoking dope with the Rolling Stones.Getting back to the democracy question, the way we elect our federal government is along the British Parliamentary model, which is mirrored at the provincial and municipal levels, that is to say, a first-past-the-post election of Members of Parliament from amongst 301 ridings dividing up the country. The party that elects the most members gets the privilege of forming the next government. But how is this democratic? Not a bit. You don't need a majority of the overall popular vote to form the government. The problem here is that in our multi-party system it isn't representative of the voting pattern of the electorate. Proportional Representation will only make the Parliament less beholden to the oligarchs but doesn't solve the problem of creating more democracy in a substantive way.Sorry for the PoliSci 101 but I just spent two hours driving home from my dad's place listening to a radio call-in program discussing the agreement to reunite the two main right-wing parties in Canada.

[Cluttermagnet]

Thanks ibe and Peachy- good comments. I learn some more every time. Yes, we are all very far from true democracies, which seem not to have ever worked very well, anyway. The oligarchy thing was good enough and it worked, so long as it was trickling down enough to nourish and sustain or grow the middle class. Trouble is, our masters have squandered our inheritance and have grown ever more greedy like disgustingly swollen, overfed tics- they work at sucking out the few remaining nutrients from the middle class, which will eventually collapse like the empty husk that it is rapidly becoming. And nobody can stop it (or can someone?) Our society is too intrinsically dishonest now, and may have lost the ability to even glimpse the truth. Besides, truth can be a stark and ugly thing, however freeing. Illusion may offer the most comfortable lives for most. As I have said before, a slow motion, systematic embezzlement of peoples' real wealth has been going on for well over a half century now, and is nearly complete. The only logical result would likely be a period of high-tech feudalism, followed eventually by the inevitable peasants' revolt, massive bloodshed, and then perhaps for a few survivors, a new day and a chance to "... go back, Jack, do it again..." (Boy, aren't I positive today? My actual outlook is a lot more happy and positive in my own day-to-day existence- it is the big picture in which I see those storm clouds growing. I have had a darned good life, in fact. Our grandkids are not going to be quite so fortunate)

[ibe98765]

Since the dawn of man, the richest and most powerful have always been in charge (It's programmed this way in our genetic code. ). Throughout history, typically, the wealthiest people tended to be the best educated and thus were/are supposed to be able to make the best choices for those under them. This was the thought pattern of the founders when they wrote the U.S. Constitution. Back in the early days of the United State, only male property owners were allowed to vote. Property owners were of course wealthy and by definition, had the best interests of the community at heart. Alexander Hamilton explains his reasoning for limiting voting to property owners here:

http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/libr...asp?document=80[The classic argument for limiting voting rights to adult males who own property: so that voters are excluded who are dependent on the wills of others for their livelihood. — TGW] Hamilton is quoting Blackstone’s Commentaries, bk. 1, ch. 2:] "If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other."From Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961-79), 1:106

More interesting docs on who should have the vote in the early U.S. here:http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/libr....asp?category=5Even today, 227 years later, it takes a certain amount of wealth and power to be able to afford and/or raise the $$$ necessary to cover the costs of a major political campaign. So even though the ability to vote has been vastly expanded to everyone, rich and poor, male and female, and virtually anyone can run for elected office, it is still the wealthy and powerful who can afford to run and therefore, get elected. And yes, the United States is organized as a Republic, not a Democracy. Given the lackadaisical state of education in this country, many do not know the difference. Here's a little bit more on the subject of a Republic:http://wealth4freedom.com/Republic.html

[littlebone]

Speaking about Bustmante, this is a guy with a 6 figure income who gave a measely $105 to charity as noted on his last public tax return!

To give the benefit of the doubt: Not all giving is tax deductible. The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) and the Sierra Club both do lobbying for environmental causes. CLCV contributions are not deductible and you would have to earmark funds for the Sierra Club to its educational arm to get a deduction.

[ibe98765]

Speaking about Bustmante, this is a guy with a 6 figure income who gave a measely $105 to charity as noted on his last public tax return!

To give the benefit of the doubt: Not all giving is tax deductible. The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) and the Sierra Club both do lobbying for environmental causes. CLCV contributions are not deductible and you would have to earmark funds for the Sierra Club to its educational arm to get a deduction.

Perhaps. But I doubt that Bustamante gave $105 to deductible charities and say, $2000 to non-deductible ones. As a career politician, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that that your tax return is going to be public knowledge and that it would be wise to make appropriate contributions if for no other reason than to keep up proper appearances. No, I think Bustamante was just one cheap SOB.