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| Non-Americans: Who has your vote? |
| McCain |
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14% |
[ 3 ] |
| Obama |
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85% |
[ 18 ] |
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| Total Votes : 21 |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: If the World Could Vote |
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If the World Could Vote
So far:
Obama 86%
McCain 14% |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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"The world" is probably setting itself up for extreme disappointment re: American foreign affairs under a possible B. Obama presidency.
For example...
| Obama-Biden Plan wrote: |
On Israel
Ensure a Strong U.S.-Israel Partnership: Barack Obama and Joe Biden strongly support the U.S.-Israel relationship, believe that our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the Middle East. They support this closeness, stating that that the United States would never distance itself from Israel.
Support Israel's Right to Self Defense: During the July 2006 Lebanon war, Barack Obama stood up strongly for Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah raids and rocket attacks, cosponsoring a Senate resolution against Iran and Syria's involvement in the war, and insisting that Israel should not be pressured into a ceasefire that did not deal with the threat of Hezbollah missiles. He and Joe Biden believe strongly in Israel's right to protect its citizens.
Support Foreign Assistance to Israel: Barack Obama and Joe Biden have consistently supported foreign assistance to Israel. They defend and support the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel and have advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met. They have called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems. |
Obama-Biden Plan
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:09 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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Oh most certainly, if their expectations are too high. But if you talk to non-Americans about Clinton, they generally have a far faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar higher opinion of him than Bush.
There is such thing as a lesser evil, you know.  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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| B. Obama also promises to maintain the Cuban embargo -- for whatever that and the Israeli aid might be worth once the American economy finishes collapsing over the next several weeks and/or months, of course. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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| You expect to get aid from Israel? How so? You've been bankrolling their very expensive illegal occupation and settlements for decades (whether directly or indirectly) and they are also going to be f***ed if your generosity dries up. They might find themselves having to learn how to be good neighbours. Either that, or find a new sponser in China. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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Whoever said I expect the Israeli govt to send aid to the American govt?
Very well, then. I hereby rephrase my comment: the Cuban embargo and the Israeli aid program will likely be worth very little once the American economy finishes crashing and hits bottom.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:35 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Whoever said I expect the Israeli govt to send aid to the American govt? |
Just one possible interpretation of what you wrote above. I didn't quite think that's what you'd meant to say, though. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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| So you leaped before you looked and started hurling the allegation-driven discourse and four-letter words at me before simply asking for clarification. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| So you leaped before you looked and started hurling the allegation-driven discourse and four-letter words at me before simply asking for clarification. |
No, I just leaped and gave you a kung-fu kick in the chops, just for the fun of it.  |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:38 pm Post subject: |
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The Repubs have been spectacularly successful at wrecking the economy and driving the country into record-breaking debt.
I'm all for giving Obama a go at it now. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Charismatic, striking and young man vs fossil. Obviously I would vote for Obama. McCain is simply too old. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 3:44 am Post subject: |
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Follow up
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/01/usa.uselections2000
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Or, as one emailer put it: "We are electing the President of the United States and the world can choke on it." His was one of a deluge of mainly hostile responses to a column that appeared here three weeks ago, arguing that the world's verdict would be harsh if Americans chose McCain over Obama. In their thousands, Americans wrote to tell me they read my words not as a simple prediction of the consequences of an American decision broadly to maintain the Bush-Cheney approach � but as some kind of threat. I was not merely commenting on the US election, they said, but intervening in it, seeking to blackmail American voters with the threat of global ostracism (as if I'm in a position to issue such a threat).
The counterblasts featured all the usual themes familiar to any columnist or blogger who wades into this terrain. America had saved Europe's "ass" twice before � and we would doubtless come bleating for help again when we inevitably sought rescue from the Muslim hordes imposing sharia law on London, Paris and Berlin. We can't defend ourselves, of course, because we are limp-wristed "Euroweenies", effeminate socialists whose own decline robs us of the right to say anything about the United States, which remains the greatest nation on earth.
Britain specifically forfeited the right to meddle in US affairs more than two centuries ago, when it lost the War of Independence. Besides, Obama is a Marxist, so Europe is welcome to him. One Bill07407 managed to capture the flavour of this virtual avalanche � including the curiously homoerotic undercurrent that runs through much rightwing American invective � with this effort: "If you want Comrade Obama we will gladly ship him over after he loses in a landslide. Meanwhile you can kiss my ass. I bet you would enjoy it faggot." Equally reflective, this from bioguy777: "I love it! A pansy-ass limey Brit begs the US to do his bidding while his own country slips further towards total Islamic rule. We're electing McCain, and the rest of the world can piss up a rope if they don't like it. 1776, BITCH!"
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So, Americans who say that since they don't poke their nose into our domestic affairs we should stay out of theirs, are making a bogus comparison. The battle of Brown v Cameron won't affect them. But the battle of Obama v McCain will affect me and every other Briton, �European and citizen of the world. It could determine whether we are at peace or war, whether our �economy thrives or enters a depression. This is not a mayoral election in rural Bulgaria, a purely internal matter of interest only to the locals. It damn well is our business.
What's more, Americans would not have it any other way. They like to define their president as the "leader of the free world". So why is it such a cheek if the free world shows some interest in who that leader will be? Americans, you can't have it both ways: either you're the global superpower, in which case the world has a stake in your future direction, or you're not. But you can't act like �America and expect to be treated like Liechtenstein: it doesn't work that way.
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And just to make some of you feel warm and fuzzy:
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The second charge to be defeated is that to talk like this is somehow anti-American. The �reverse is true. For what is prompting non-Americans to follow the �current election so closely is not just an acknowledgement that the US is the dominant force in international life, but a yearning for America to lead once more. I saw that clearly in the crowd of 200,000 that greeted Obama in Berlin in July. They wanted to feel about an American president the way their parents had felt about John F Kennedy, to be awed once more, as Bill Clinton puts it, by the power of America's example, not the example of its power. And, for most non-Americans, that means an end to unilateral wars and a moral lead on climate change � not a continuation of the past eight Republican years.
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 3:53 am Post subject: |
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"I'm not antiAmerican; just the opposite," blah, blah, blah. Retitle that article: "One AntiAmericanist's Very Weakly Played Spin Games."
And at the end of the day: Tough. Your opinion carries no weight in this election. You may retreat into the Guardian's self-righteous preaching-to-the-choir, obscure internet polls such as this one, and that is all you have got.
Last edited by Gopher on Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:39 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| But if you talk to non-Americans about Clinton, they generally have a far faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar higher opinion of him than Bush. |
Not really. Actually, they always return to the same, boringly predictable analogies and metaphors: Hitler, Fascism. I, too, like B. Clinton's campaign-year talk about the power of America's example vs. the example of its power.
But, in any case, just as, to "the rest of the world," W. Bush is Hitler, so, too, was B. Clinton Hitler, in their esteemed and well-considered estimation, and just as, when necessary, W. Bush applied the example of America's power, so, too, did B. Clinton apply the example of America's power (and so will B. Obama)...
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Melbourne: Sunday, March 28: about 6,000 demonstrators smashed windows and hurled stones and eggs at the U.S. consulate. Melbourne demonstrators, waving Yugoslav flags and placards, compared US President Bill Clinton to Hitler, calling him a murderer...
Sydney: Comparing President Clinton to Adolf Hitler, more than 7,000 demonstrators marched on the U.S. Consulate Sunday, March 28, to protest NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. They also marched on the Sidney Opera House, to confront Prime Minister John Howard, who was participating in a Greek national Independence Day celebration. There was some scuffling with riot police....
Vienna: 26 Mar 1999: Nato fascist, Nato fascist, Nato fascist! Today about 15.000 mainly Jugoslav people took to the streets of Vienna to protest against Nato's attack on Yugoslavia, after yesterday's protests assembled already about 2.000...
Bangladesh: In response to the call made by the International Action Center today, 17th of April, 1999 at 5pm local time a protest demonstration paraded main streets of Dhaka, capital city of Bangladesh, against U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. In front of the rally there was a big banner demanding- NATO Hands off Yugoslavia! Demonstrators carried placards demanding 'Stop the Bombing! Stop the War against Yugoslavia! Clinton is a War Criminal! Protest rally ended In front of the National Press Club and there a flag of USA was burnt by the angry demonstrators... |
http://www.iacenter.org/bosnia/yugdemo2.htm
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ATHENS, Greece -- Thousands of Greek protesters angered by NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia clashed with riot police in front of the U.S. embassy in Athens on Friday.
Meanwhile, authorities in Toronto were bracing for another round of anti-American protests Friday night, a day after angry Canadian Serbs set fire to the U.S. consulate.
Protests against the U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign were also reported Friday in Macedonia, Cyprus and in the Serb-controlled portion of Bosnia, where a British diplomatic outpost was destroyed by fire.
'Clinton, fascist murderer'
In Athens, about 10,000 demonstrators marched through the center of the city to the heavily fortified U.S. embassy. The march was organized by leftist parties and youth groups.
Protesters tossed stones and eggs at the building, burned American flags and lit fires in the streets. The crowd shouted "Clinton, fascist murderer" and "Down with imperialism" as they gave Nazi-style salutes... |
CNN Reports
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| Angry at the U.S. president's leadership of the NATO assault on Yugoslavia, protesters carried signs portraying him as a murderer and "Butcher of the Balkans..." |
CNN Reports |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:38 am Post subject: |
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Its just an anecdote but for the majority of the people i knew in ireland, Clinton was much more popular than Bush. For the average guy on the street who would never go to protest anyone, that is the case imo.
clinton looked like a leader. charismatic, handsome, and one of the lads..whereas bush had none of those qualities(from an irish pov).
I think any us president will get protested wherever they go by random nutters, but few have been as universally unpopular as bush. i literally know no-one who has a good word to say about him. I have canadian, american, british, aussie, nz and korean friends. |
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