Don't forget C. Hitchens' "feeling of exhilaration" as the Towers crumbled. Oh, what a golden time.

Wow! No one could have said it better..... the sheer hypocrisy of our so called leaders, their opportunism to seize absolute power and then act with impunity and without accountability......at a heavy cost of death and destruction for ordinary people and at no cost to them.........
Thinking of all the victims of sheer brutality of our wars and those who died on Sep 11, 2001 who had absolutely nothing to do with our leaders' bankrupt policies.

AND,

"You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy."
--Colin Powell

He certainly made sure, it did..... revenge, bigotry, persecution of innocents for being what/who they are...and on and on and on....to never ending perpetual war..

I think I see a golden opportunity here to say THANX, DEAN TAYLOR, for the heads up concerning SOA, last post. (Sadly, I've had some distant personal ties to the "School Of The Who-lee-o's" years ago and Ft. Benning in general.)

OPPORTUNITIES for the chickens to come home to roost. OBL's chickens shit on his head when they landed, as OURS are doing to US and will continue to do for a looong while. Profiting??? from the neighbors' misery and expecting to get by, same ole greed and stupidity. That smile Jon writes about---just an idiot's grin.

May be, may be, on this anniversary, our leaders could learn something from these young people..... in spite of their misery and injustice to them, they have something positive to teach.... tolerance, reconciliation, peace and love!

here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kp3HQ5HzQ9I#!

Here's one reality worth facing: the modern electoral system has no role for 3rd parties except as spoilers, at least at the presidential level. Changing this reality means changing the system, not dreaming that a 3rd party will someday, somehow, prevail within it.

"modern American electoral system," of course

...not that I have any constructive suggestions as to how that might be accomplished, either.

Well I can believe that you can reasonably accurately source your fist two quotes but this one
"Osama bin Laden, December, 2004"

He'd been dead for three years by then.

godoggo: "Stealing" votes from either party is NOT a spoiler. Can't spoil what is already rotten. Meanwhile, a RICH hedge fund manager or a RICH corporate lawyer, lesser of two evils both of whom WILL feed the banksters, keep GITMO, bomb some children at a wedding party, AND keep on screwing the American Citizens like they ain't never been screwed before. Decisions, decisions!!!

Third Party, Folks.
Waaay too late for this election cycle. Start today and maybe by 2016???

YES. THIS.

YES. THIS.

'"Stealing" votes from either party is NOT a spoiler.'

It's the difference between bad and worse. You won't convince me otherwise, let alone convince a majority of more-or-less left-leaning Americans that a Romney presidency is worth risking.

The good news, of course, is that none of our individual votes makes any difference at all, so, please, vote for whoever rocks your boat. Hell, vote Nazi for all I care.

"The good news, of course, is that none of our individual votes makes any difference at all, so, please, vote for whoever rocks your boat."

That's the spirit. I'm a lesser of two evils convert myself and really hope Romney loses (I think of it that way rather than hoping Obama wins), but I was just reading the usual Nader-bashing over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money and at Tbogg the other day. I'm not sure what triggered this latest spasm. Maybe it's a regular ritual at those places--I just stumbled across it both times. It's kind of frustrating how self-righteous people can get over their decision to support Lesser Evil. I mean, I buy the argument, but Gore (they were rehashing the 2000 election) was partly responsible for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths due to sanctions and that ought to make people feel a little queasy. Indirectly helping Bush to win should also make people feel queasy. Nobody has clean hands here. Maybe people want to feel like they're making a difference and the truth, that whatever you do at the ballot box is going to have some nasty consequences to the extent that it makes any diffference at all, is just too depressing. It's more fun to bash the other guy for being an idiot.

When the world gives you carnage, make carnage-ade.

godoggo: I'm not stumping for either of OUR present candidates. They've got US by the balls already and therefore have no need of my help.
I'm DREAMING of a third party, a TRULY independent third party and not a subset of one of the two major parties. A party that considers and promotes SOLUTIONS to the nation's problems and not just pile horseshit in the doorway. A party with more than just a presidential candidate, but one with senators and representatives as well.
I contend that the system will never be changed if the same two corrupt parties supply ALL OUR leadership.

Yeah, kind of a catch 22, ain't it?

godoggo: Yes, indeed, quite a quandary when one stays inside the box. The system is designed to keep everyone inside the two party system, as a STRONG THIRD PARTY, one which the two majors can't crush, absolutely is a spoiler.
BUT someone has to step up to the plate, in fact, a whole LOT of someones have to step up.

Realizing that this is all off-topic, but what the hell...

I'd say that one real-world consequence of this argument was one of the main things that turned me off the Greens in 2000 - that I'd read that they had a policy of running aggressively against Democratic politicians in local races even in those cases where the Dems were ideologically close to the Greens; in other words they were focusing on long-term party building at the cost of immediate negative consequences on real people, which is same problem with being a spoiler at the presidential level (assuming you're able to attract enough voters), since there are real differences between the candidates.

And I don't know offhand what they're policy is on this, but I've never heard a Green candidate place much emphasis on reforming the electoral process. Certainly there wasn't much talk of this at the one rally I went to.

And I don't know what their policy is on this, but I haven't even heard much talk from Greens on reforming the electoral process; certainly there wasn't much talk about this at the one rally I went to.

godoggo: I'm not stumping for the Green Party either. I suppose electing a Dem is positive? No negativity from a Dem candidate's election? Both major parties put the nation here. Saying that the Greens going against the Dems causes immediate negativity to real people without examples or PROOF doesn't wash in light of ALL the examples of the REAL harm the Democratic Party HAS caused ALL THE REAL PEOPLE of, not just this nation but, the world.

Well, I guess this was probably the article I read 12 years ago (and not since) on Nader:
http://www.laweekly.com/2000-11-09/news/unsafe-at-any-speed/

At this point, though, Nader’s sketch of his strategic vision for the Greens becomes mind-boggling. Two years hence, if a Green runs against his number-two favorite American thing, says Nader, he’ll back the Green. “There’s an overriding goal here, and that’s to build a majority party,” he says. “I hate to use military analogies, but this is war . . . After November, we’re going to go after the Congress in a very detailed way, district by district. If [Democrats in a particular district] are winning 51 to 49 percent, we’re going to go in and beat them with Green votes. They’ve got to lose people, whether they’re good or bad.” Moberg goes on to report that “Nader is willing to sacrifice progressives like [Senators] Russ Feingold in Wisconsin or [Paul] Wellstone [in Minnesota].” Nader explains, “That’s the burden they’re going to have to bear for letting their party go astray. It’s too bad.”

As far as the current race, sorry if this is lazy, but I just googled "differences between Obama and Romney," and got this handy guide for example:
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Barack_Obama_vs_Mitt_Romney

Main difference is I think Romney's economic policy would be harmful.

About a month ago our cops shot 34 striking miners at a place called Marikana.

I googled Marikana opportunity -- got a million and a half responses, but the first relevant one on the foot of the page was "Marikana is an opportunity for SA to pick up the pieces..."

Nothing like a massacre for creating opportunities. And pieces. Lots of them.

never let a crisis go to waste

The next logical step would be to look at Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, which shows that natural and economic disasters are also viewed by our leaders as a great opportunity.

War! What is it good for?

Business, my boy - it's real good for business - and for keeping and increasing political power.

http://mistahcharley.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-see-dead-people-but-im-not-only-one.html

Why Raising Awareness Is Not Enough

Most people believe that increased awareness
leads to involvement, concern, and finally
action.

But does it? Not according to most research.
Awareness may be a prerequisite to concern and
action, but by itself, it does not trigger action.

http://www.greencom.org/greencom/pdf/awareness.pdf

One of your best. Thank you.

Golden opportunities show up everywhere and are easy pickin's, low hanging fruit, as they say. Lybia showed up in the news just this morning with four dead embassy personal (OURS) and most likely some of their guards (theirs). (lybia=oil=opportunity)

godoggo: AGAIN, I'm NOT stumping for The Green Party.
As for the differences between Romney and Obama, they're easy to see. Its the similarities that astound me. BOTH want OUR money and resources so they can bomb some innocent people in the neighborhood AND torture a few in OUR playground at GITMO. Why, just this morning Mitt was slobbering over the chance to nail some Lybians and Barrack's record can speak for itself.
As for the Romney/Obama economy, BOTH plan on more foreclosures and feeding Goldman Sachs OUR money. Neither one has a clue nor a plan nor the inclination about JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.
AS FOR NADER, in light of the last twelve years, the article YOU've mentioned makes Nader a genius.
Progressives seem to think they can "fix" the Democratic Party somehow and all will be right with the world again. Its a rotting corpse and WE ain't Dr. Frankenstein.

Should be Libyans & Libya above.

difference between Romney and Obama? look at how each is handling the Libyan consulate murders.

Romney sees a political OPPORTUNITY, and is crassly milking it for all he can.

Obama is trying to handle it like an adult.

godoggo's completely right about the realities of first-past-the-post, sadly enough.

cleek; NEW American guns AND new American cars used to kill The New American Ambassador, POTUS took advantage of the OPPORTUNITY long ago. Mitt is just slow, that's all.
I feel sorry for the folks in Libya, both Libyan and American. The day ain't over yet so those people, innocent and guilty, are looking to face some rough days ahead added on to the rough times they've had in the last 40 years.

Liberal: THAT'S the exact reason to try it (third party). Seems NOTHING else has worked.

I came to the conclusion awhile ago, that almost without exception (Vaclav Havel?), that anybody that wants to be a head of state, and is capable enough to climb the pile of clawing,scraping, back-stabbing humanity, is a sociopathic megalomaniac, or a megalomanaical sociopath, or both. ;)

mikeinportc wrote, "(Vaclav Havel?)"

Given that he supported Bush's invasion of Iraq, I think he's probably closer to the "sociopath" category than you think he is.

I tried to put this on my Facebook page and it keeps going to an different essay. I just copied the address. Could you please tell me what I'm doing wrong and, while you're at it, may I have permission to share it? It seems to me as close to perfection as it can get.

Never mind my earlier, I was able to get it on Facebook. Hope that's all right with you. This piece is one of the most intelligent and heartfelt I've read about 9/11. It recognizes the terrible human cost, yet refuses to make that an excuse for the equal--or worse, at least in scope--horrors we've been inflicting since. Thank you.

Obama is trying to handle it like an adult.

Well, no. He said, "Make no mistake: justice will be done," and you know what that means. The drones are already in the air. But maybe that's what you mean by handling it like an adult?

Ah, the OPPORTUNITIES abound across the middle east(low hanging fruit so to speak). Drones (as Duncan points out above)and a carrier group WITH cruise missiles&marines headed to Libya today. Egypt & Yemen are jumping with excitement.(My opportunity) I'm thinking of starting an office pool(as if cows have money) as to which middle eastern capital will be the first to "light up like Baghdad on a Saturday night".

Anyway, I just reread that article I linked to above. I'd somewhat vaguely recalled it having a lot to do with my decision to vote for Gore, but I'd forgotten just how devastating it was.

Small minds, easily swayed by weak arguments.

Good lord, Nader. It's about time you showed some sense. Third parties are built from the bottom up, not from the top down. The top tier is controlled by corporate power, and they know how to hang on to it.
If by some remote chance a strong leader could rally the 99% to replace the top leaders, he would most likely end up in a hole in the ground at Arlington where annual tribute would be paid to him by misquoting him and distorting what he stood for.

I don't see the problem as anything as sinister as all that. It just happens to be that our electoral system is poorly designed, an honest error on the part of the founders.

Paul Avery: Seems sensible to me. But then I'm at the bottom---poor agricultural labor. When I was young maybe Dad could have lent me the money to become a hedge fund manager. As I saw he was a truck mechanic struggling to pay off Beneficial Finance, the thought never crossed my mind.

Rev. Terry Jones&The Net---A veritable treasure trove of opportunity.

Democrats never get tired of bashing Nader and never will, but it's sad to see it on ATR.

Nader didn't nominate himself for the presidency in 2000, nor did he found the Green Party. His Green Party candidacy was quintessentially grassroots and bottom-up--it was a rallying point for multiple movements, and a vehicle for building support for everything that mattered to the left. Despite his role as a focus for all of that, Nader was ultimately irrelevant to it; it was about the left finally asserting its independence. That so many people abandoned that moment of independence before it had even fully begun, and ran tearfully and apologetically back into the arms of the Democrats (i.e. co-optation and irrelevance), is the greatest failure of the modern U.S. left.

Yeah, John, the last time I felt real hope and change (and I don't mean the trademarked logo kind) was 2000. For the first time since, I honestly don't know who to vote for...the Greens really disappointed me with safe state strategy...I don't think Nader's running again...here in California, they've decimated Third Parties with the open primary...it's truly a sad time for the left.

Anyway, sorry for threadjacking. I'm just not normally in the mood on those occasions when John or Jon discusses this subject, but suddenly I found myself in it.

Peggy: Why not write in YOUR OWN name on that ballot? I'm absolutely positive YOU would make a better choice than what WE face in November.
John Caruso&All: California isn't ALL of America by a long shot. Rules and laws can be petitioned to change--look at DADT.

Folks, a third party will only succeed by many citizens fighting hard. To think that the two majors will GIVE even an inch of power to a third party is to be on the wrong of Mao's rifle.(literally)

"1. What is this?"

Controlled demolition.

WE NOW see Mitt was hoping "Some Americans" could get in some kind of trouble so he could take advantage of THE OPPORTUNITY.
Mitt doesn't seem to realize social media REALLY exists and that he's being recorded24/7 by someone, somewhere.
Listen to the whole video. That's America talking there. WE raise 'em that way, folks, that's how Mittens got here with US. NEEDLESS to say, Mitt&Ann ain't alone.