In response to the conversation on Karylee's wall!

• Timothy Martin Flanagan Obama is a Republican... He was a better choice than McCain and Palin... but not by much. Hopefully we can find an actual progressive to run. Obama's embrace of the death penalty, the Bush agenda, wiretapping, and rendering Americans for torture, rape, and murder overseas... is only the short list of why we need someone on our side for a change...

  Saturday at 3:56pm ·
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  Doug Stanley

  Timothy. While I respect your right to your opinion, you frighten me. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the future of this country, that a candidate who embraces the things you espouse is never successful in attaining elective office. Esp...ecially as President of the United States.
  I'm pleased that you recognize that Obama was and is not the Messiah he was thought to be, and I agree that the selection of Sarah Palin was a horrible choice. However I also hope that this run at socialism is over. I do appreciate the dialogue, and thank Karylee for allowing it on her wall. God bless America.

Tim Wrote:  I did not "espouse" any of the sad realities which now exist.  I only pointed them out. I think that having a president who embraces the Bush agenda, wiretapping, and rendering Americans is frightening as well.  But what would be more frightening is to ignore the facts.

The linguistic acrobatics which are necessary to call Obama a "socialist" are ludicrous. Just more spin from the mean machine.   However, your claim that the Bush agenda is tantamount to socialism may, at some levels, be historically accurate.  Hitler considered himself a socialist. And the claim that we have a right to attack anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason... seems relatively Un-American to me. As for Obama... while his embrace of wars of choice is frightening... this stance has more to do with corporate fascism than socialism.  We are on a slippery slope...

Basically Obama's surrrender to the right wing does not bode well for everyday people.  Hopefully we will find someone to secure the peace, fix our schools, and get insurance companies off the table and out of our pockets. We need a Dept. of peace instead of endless war. And cutting social services to fund tax breaks for billionaires is insane.  We should properly care for our elderly, students, children, veterans,
and other Americans who have lost jobs, homes, and health.

We need universal nonprofit healthcare like the rest of the planet... functioning schools, intact infrastructure, constitutional integrity, and a return to the rule of law.  Today's progressives, in many ways, are the new conservatives.  We would conserve values, laws, the environment, and the constitution. Who could argue with this?  Healthy educated employed citizens can build a better tomorrow.

The mean right wing spin machine's vision of endless corporate occupations on the taxpayer dime is nonsense.  And it is unfortunate that Obama has surrendered to this view.  Most Americans have no idea what they have lost.  Legalizaed rendering, wiretapping, wars of choice, and the suspension of habeas corpus has set this nation back 400 years.  Congress is most to blame.  They suspended habeas corpus and made torture legal.  Their betrayal of the values my father defended in World Ware Two is a tragedy.  In my view.

But...  opinions vary...  And thanks Karylee for the space for the preceding conversation. Any who have opinions on these matters could send a letter to editor@theportlandalliance.org.... for 20 thousand readers!
http://www.theportlandalliance.org